On the hike we also talked about how bears are using the northern counties such as Granville, Person, and Caswell as a corridor to travel west to east and east to west, with some of the bears traveling a slightly more southerly route through Durham County. From the bears on Guess Rd several years ago, to the bear in Northgate Park neighborhood, to the bear sightings right here at West Point a couple of summers ago. Bears are coming through the area and the majority of the time they are using stream and river basins as their travel path. North Carolina has a growing bear population and as that population grows their range will expand from the east and the west till it overlaps here in the piedmont. We may never have a large bear population in this part of the state, but we should keep seeing more and more bears in the area. Here is a link to black bear information relating to North Carolina. http://www.ncwildlife.org/Wildlife_Species_Con/WSC_Black_Bear.htm There is a good map in here of the current bear range and it show how the bear range has expanded since the 70's in North Carolina.
