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Black Bears Spotted In Lake Of The Ozarks Area This Summer [VIDEO]

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LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. — Missouri is home to nearly 1,000 black bears, and the presence of our ursid neighbors was never more widely talked about than this summer, when Bruno the bear made an epic trek from Minnesota down to Missouri. His journey was chronicled by many thousands of people on social media, with multiple Facebook groups devoted to him. Bruno was eventually stopped in the St. Louis area, after conservationists worried he'd become trapped by a convergence of highways. He was sedated and moved to a safer area.

But long before Bruno's arrival, black bear sightings have been on the rise in Missouri, and the Lake of the Ozarks area has its own burgeoning bear population. This summer, two bear sightings were reported in a Facebook group devoted to Missouri bear, bobcat, and mountain lion sightings. It's unclear whether it was the same bear, but Petey Bellington, of Camden County, and Cheri Landers of Miller County have photo and video evidence there's at least one bear in the neighborhood.

Bellington says he spotted a bear on June 11, at around 3 p.m., in Camden County. His photo is below.

Landers' daughter took a video a week later of a black bear wandering through her back yard, likely looking for its next meal.

A black bear was found wondering around near a home in Miller County, MO on 6/18/2020. Video courtesy of Cheri Landers

There have been plenty of other bear sightings in the Lake area in recent years. Read more about them, and see photos, below:


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