My horses are playing with a bear! - Link Fixed

Here's a link to this story with photos.

Thursday morning, 10/23/2008 about 7:30 AM EST the bear was first noticed in the horse pen. Missy was the first to notice this as our Paint was outside of the pen, a section of the electric fence tape was hanging on the ground, and one of the 3x5 fence posts was missing. Missy called me at work, 30 miles away and I sped home. Once I got there I found out the Paint had ran through the fence breaking off the fence post at ground level. These posts are new, are 3 feet in the ground and cemented in place. Thankfully we spent the extra money and used what I now consider a top of the line fence tape which didn't break but stretched slightly. Even the embedded stainless steel conductor wires didn't break. The bear and the horses actually spent about an hour together. The horses did kick out and the bear took a few good shots but hung around for about 40 minutes in the pen. When he did leave the pen, he stayed around our property for at least another hour. I realized early on the bear was not aggressive and appeared to be fairly young. Not wanting to kill the bear, I called the Game Warden. He advised me it was legal to shoot the bear if I felt it became aggressive, which the bear never did. About 10 minutes after the bear had left, the game warden arrived with a bear trap. He set up and baited the trap near the pen. The next day, the bait was gone but the trap hadn't been sprung. I'm not sure what got the bait but the warden is due back to re-bait the trap. The trap is pretty big and won't hurt the bear so if the bear is caught, he will be taken and released in a more isolated area which makes me feel better. All in all it was an eye opening experience, none of the horses have a scratch on them which surprised me especially with the Paint bulldozing down the fence post.