Bear sightings in the Myrtle Beach area increase in summer months

At 84 and with mobility problems, there’s only so much Marion Epstein can bear.

And an actual one traipsing across her property at the River Hills Golf and Country Club is not on the list.

“I’m here almost 30 years. I’ll be damned if I can’t feel safe to take a walk,” Epstein said.

Her home, which hugs the 18th green at the Little River subdivision, has been visited in the past by alligators, though in recent conversations with neighbors who have reported sightings, she’s starting to worry about an ursine encounter.

Though not as bountiful as other wildlife that call South Carolina home, black bears are the largest land animal found in the state and have sustainable numbers in Horry County — estimated by wildlife officials at around 300.

The summer months are busy for bears, as it’s moving time for yearlings. Most sightings are of animals between 18 months and two years old that have left their mother and in search of their own territory.

Trapper Fowler, a former state Department of Natural Resources biologist who worked on its bear management and conservation plan, said ongoing development has shifted habitat and migration patterns, making a possible sighting less rare.

“Young bears are super active and mobile. They’re basically leaving mom and those two-year (old) bears will become a little bit more transient,” he said. “They’re just trying to find their own little spot.”

Bear hunting in Georgetown, Horry, Marion and Williamsburg counties began in 2011 and runs from Oct. 17 through Oct. 30, with a harvest quota of 30.

While impossible for scientists to calculate exactly how may bears may roam South Carolina’s wilds, officials have pegged their coastal population at around 300 based on DNA modeling and reported sightings.

“Horry County used to have the biggest bear population in the state but obviously because our county has grown so rapidly, a lot of their habitat has been developed,” Fowler said. “So it’s pushing those bears into new places. Oftentimes, they have to cross neighborhoods to find wildlife corridors.”

With home ranges of between six and 160 square miles, bears can easily stretch their biomes into backyard and onto golf courses. A 2018 legislative report said the majority of bear-to-human contacts was the result of unsecured trash or bird feeders.

But for Epstein, the notion of coming across a bear has her on high alert.

“It’s OK on TV but not in person,” she said.