Bear Caught on Trail Camera in Mayes County Worries Oklahoma Family

Bear in Locust Grove July 1, 2023

A Broken Arrow family says they’re a little worried after their trail cameras captured pictures of a bear on their property in Locust Grove.

The Grove Family says when they saw their deer feeder knocked over, they thought it was just the wind.

But when they checked out the cameras, they found out, that wasn’t the case.

Peggy Grove and her family has had land out in Locust Grove for six years, but this is the first time they’ve seen a bear on camera.

“It kind of scared me at first because we didn’t really expect the bear to be around,” said Grove. “We had thought we had seen the bear once before on the camera, but we had never seen it after that.”

She isn’t sure if it’s one bear making several appearances or several different bears, but she is worried this means more bears could be somewhere on their property.

“It is a pretty good-sized bear,” said Grove. “It’s not a baby, but I don’t think it’s fully grown either.”

Bear hunting in Mayes County is against the law, so Grove is looking for other solutions to keep the bear away.

“I’m hoping that we can get ahold of the Game Warden and see if there’s something that we can do about maybe putting them somewhere else,” said Grove. “I don’t want us to be attacked by the bear either. If we could get some help to get the bear out of there, that would be awesome.”

She’s worried the bear could attack while the family is out there hunting.

But she’s also nervous for neighbors in the area who have little kids.

‘It’s kind of scary for them because they’re there all the time, but if they don’t know about it, they can’t be looking for it,” said Grove.

Grove says knowing the bear is on camera has forced her and her family to be much more careful when they’re out in the woods.