My Most Terrifying Encounter I’ve Had With Maine Wildlife

To all the hunters out there, I get it, this is going to sound like I'm a kitten compared to the wildlife you see.

But it's still terrifying when you come across a Maine black bear (that's not the baseball team).

How Many Black Bears Are There in Maine?

This is something I actually didnt realize until now, but Maine actually has the largest population of black bears in the U.S.

Coming in hot with an estimated average of 24,000 to 36,000 black bears living in Maine, according to the National Parks Service, it isn't unlikely to encounter one on a hike.

That's exactly what happened to me on Moosehead Lake.

Also Read: This Maine Trail Ranked the Most Beautiful Winter Hike in U.S.

Moosehead Lake, Maine

This is one of my favorite hikes in the summertime. The views are breathtaking and the wildlife is very plentiful.

However, "plentiful" can also get scary if it catches you off guard.

RECENT SIGHTINGS | Bear on the Move: Sightings Spotted Around Lewiston, Maine

My dog, Maverick, actually saw the black bear first about 100 feet from us.

One of my biggest fears is hiking with my dog and he runs up to a bear thinking he's also a dog and a fight breaks out so you can imagine the way my heart stopped.

Luckily, Maverick ended up stopping dead in his own tracks the same way that I did when I saw that the bear had spotted us.

As scared as we both were, after about 2 minutes of a frozen stand-off, fortunately the bear did run in the other direction.

My dad always taught me to make myself look bigger than the bear so that's what I did.

Looking back, I must have looked so silly but I pray every day to the universe that my dog didn't take off running towards it.