Chicora Bear Photos 2010
Hibernating Bear
Butler County, Western Pennsylvania

We had some excitement in Chicora during the winter of 2010. A bear decided to hibernate on Sid Callahan's property off of Oak Road - right out in the open! We always thought bears found some sort of shelter to hibernate in. Not this one!

News traveled fast and caused quite a stir. This unusual event brought our community together because there were always people at the viewing area - all winter long!

Amy Marcinkiewicz and Tom Racette from Channel 11 News came out on Monday, January 11, 2010 and covered the story. Photos and story also appeared on WPXI.com - go to "New" and then "Local" News. (NOTE added 3/12/10: We're not sure if this story is still on the WPXI Website - although we sent them our new photos taken on 3/11/10 - the day the bear left.)

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The "Chicora Bear" hibernating right out in the open - Janaury 4, 2010.
We always thought bears hibernated under cover!

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January 2010 - The bear is awake! (Well, "bear"ly...) Photo by Sue and Al Burket.

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January 2010: The bear seems to be making a bed for himself. He is gathering leaves into a pile.

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Another picture of the Chicora Bear - January 2010.

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Photo of the Chicora Bear stirring a little from hibernation - January 2010.

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Chicora Bear, awake for a little while from hibernation - January 2010.

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Chicora Bear - Photo by Sue and Al Burket - January 2010.

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News traveled fast and lots of Chicora residents came out to take a look - January 9, 2010.

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January 9, 2010: The bear-watching area is on Sid Callahan's property. Here he is talking with
Susan Burket who took some fabulous close-up shots of the bear posted on this page.

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Families, kids and photographers have been stopping by all week to see the Chicora Bear!

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Our Chicora Bear caused such a stir, that Channel 11 came out to do a story!
Which aired on Monday, January 11, 2010 - and was also posted to their website WPXI.com.

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Channel 11's camera man, Tom Racette.

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Tom Racette filming Amy Marcinkiewicz (Channel 11 News) doing the story about the bear.
Sid Callahan is showing her where the bear is, while Alvin Rumbaugh looks on.

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Amy and Tom discussing the "big" story.

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Rich Hemphill with Amy Marcinkiewicz (Channel 11 News)

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Visitors came from as far as Wheeling, West Virginia!

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Visitors checking out the bear, January 21, 2010.

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Tom and Tim Leskovic from Springdale PA came to check out the bear, too.

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February: Remember all that snow we got? Well the bear was covered with snow and it was hard to see him, so there are no photos. However, in spite of the weather, there was still a steady stream of visitors to the area. Made the winter go by faster having an interesting place to go and visit with people from near and far!

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UPDATE! Spring has sprung - the bear is gone! Rich and I stopped by to check on the bear on Thursday, March 11, 2010 around 1:45PM. He was awake and sitting up. We were lucky enough to watch him get up, shake himself off, walk around a little, sit down again and finally after 45 minutes or so he started to walk up the hill, eventually breaking into an on-again/off-again run. He started heading southwest and we were able to watch him until he disappeared into a grove of pine trees. We sure will miss watching him and visiting with our neighbors! The bear's presence sure made a tough winter fun as we met our neighbors and people from all over who came to see the bear. We managed to get a few pictures before he left. Mark Neff and a few other people were also there (Mark sent us a photo that he took, too.)

Photo of the hibernating bear in Chicora PA just after he woke up
and was eating some snow before he left the area on Thursday, March 11, 2010.

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Photograph by Mark Neff - bear leaving on March 11, 2010. Thanks Mark!

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After it left, Rich Hemphill went to the spot where the bear had been hibernating
and took some photographs of his tracks.

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Another photograph of the bear's tracks.

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After the bear left, Rich Hemphill went to the spot where he had been hibernating
and took some photographs. Somehow a bale of straw from the McCollough farm
had rolled down the hill and the bear used the straw for a bed all winter.

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Another photo of the bear's bed (with a little bit of snow.)

The bear is gone. Sigh. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Thanks everyone!

Web page and photos courtesy of Chicora residents
Linda & Rich Hemphill and Sue & Al Burket
Linda and Rich are Webmasters of PaVendors.com (and CollectibleWebs.com.)
Sue and Al took the great close-up photos of the bear posted on this page.

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 If you have any photos you would like to share, please send them to:

LindaAndRichHemphill@gmail.com

 Questions or comments? Give us a call at 724-445-3473.