Living in a Tiny House in the Woods with Big Predators

As you probably know, I live in a little clearing in the woods. On the side of a mountain. In an area with a whole lot of wildlife large and small as you have probably gathered from the many photos I have shared over the years. Like in the above shot, there are five grizzly bears at once! This has lead to a lot of questions from folks over the years about how do I deal with living near large things that could potentially kill or eat me? So, I finally sat down for a long discussion of my thoughts on that. Which you can find below. Going over some of the methods I have employed for seven and a half years now, so far successfully avoiding conflicts between my large predator neighbors and myself.

  

And for the not so video inclined ☺, I live near lots of big things. Grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions, wolf packs, and even moose. Which certainly don't eat people but can attack and kill them as well. And then there are also a lot of smaller things like coyotes, foxes, deer, elk, pine martens, raccoons, skunks, bob cats, etc. Not likely to kill a person, but for a whole host of reasons, still creatures I don't care to run smack into in the dark.  

I'll sum it up with this. Things I've done to avoid conflicts with big animals:

1. Leave no food or other smelly like food things outside. Ever. Including garbage of any kind. Keep things like bird feeders well out of reach as I discussed in another recent post.
 
2. Make sure you don't surprise each other. Motion detector lights or flood lights at night, checking the clearing when coming home at night before exiting a vehicle, etc. Be alert to what's going on around you.

These two points I think have kept conflicts from happening and so I have never needed or used either of the backup plans below.

3. Have bear spray (high powered mace, I would not hesitate to use this on anything with mucous membranes though I have never needed to yet) handy. I have one on me if I am walking around, one in the car, and one by the door. 

4. And should all that fail, yes I do have a shotgun right over the door. Loaded with 3 shells of shot and then two slugs should those fail to deter or stop an attack. 

So far, it's been a whole lot of years and thankfully I've just been able to enjoy watching all my wild neighbors. So here's some glimpses into things that have come by. Some as seen on game camera shots, some with my photography. All these are with the house in the background or photographed from the house, standing on the porch, or within a few feet of it. Not including any of the other many photos I have of wild things around the corner, up or down the mountain side from the house, along the creeks nearby etc. Just a few of the things that come right by our home.

A big male mountain lion that wondered by one night while we were sleeping.

Mountain lion muddy paw prints on my solar panels from one of more kittens when 5 of them came by the house with their mother. Cat scat right under the solar panels.

Grizzly tracks. A mother and babies.

And a family of 5 grizzlies that visited the house. 

A wolf that came by, again while we were either sleeping or at a friends place. I don't remember which now.

And littler stuff. Like a coyote.

A family of deer.

Lots and lots of foxes.

And even more different moose.

So that's a little look at living with my wild neighbors. They might be a little different than some of your neighbors. ☺