Letter to the Editor: More Bear Droppings Found in McLean

Earlier this week, a Patch reader living on the Langley High School side of McLean captured a visit by a black bear and shared the video with our site.

Now, just days later, another Patch reader on the same side of town wrote us to tell us they found animal droppings they suspect are bear droppings.

The reader sent us a photo of the droppings (no, seriously) but we decided to spare the eyes of our readers and go with a more generic bear photo instead.

Nevertheless, the photo of the droppings was taken alongside a tape measure that shows the droppings are nearly eight inches long, likely too large to be dog droppings, as the reader noted in the letter.

Take a look at the letter in its entirety, which shares some tips on how to spot if animal droppings are in fact bear droppings:

I found (the droppings) next to our driveway on June 24th. I think it had been there for a few days when I found it. We are near Langley High School.

It’s far too big for a dog, and we do not have big dogs in the area. It’s about two inches diameter and eight inches long, and there seems to be mostly vegetation and grass-looking stuff in it.

What is interesting is if you look online for pictures of bear poop, there are a lot of variations of what it looks like, mainly due to diet.

It often looks like more of a small cow pie with a lot of small berry seeds, but at the time when this was found, there were few bushes with berries in the area. ...

... I had contacted Fairfax Animal Control and they did not seem to really care. They only were interested if there was a current sighting.

Since the story with the dog injury, this may be something you want to add so people will be more aware of their surroundings.

Fairfax County Police reported Wednesday night that a dog in Great Falls was wounded from an encounter with a wild animal, again suspected to be a bear.

Patch file photo