A few years ago I was driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway near milepost 155, just south of the Smart View picnic and recreation area. A black bear ran across the road trailing paper that appeared to be stuck to one rear paw.

As the bear high-tailed it over a Parkway chestnut fence, the paper came off.

I pulled over to watch the bear run across a pasture and then checked out what he'd been dragging. It was the wrapper for a package of Hostess Ding Dongs. Apparently the bear had been rummaging through garbage cans or picnic supplies at Smart View.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this junk food-eating bear was the first sign that something as apparently harmless as feeding the birds was about to get a lot more complicated.

Human interaction with black bears seems to be on the increase in Southwest Virginia. The animals have always been common in the back country of Craig County and other rural areas. But in recent years they've been seen in downtown Roanoke, within the town limits of Blacksburg, inside a hospital in Rocky Mount, and -- oh yes -- in my own yard in Slings Gap in Franklin County.

Local Internet bird lists have been full of reports from frustrated birders about bears pillaging feeders in Roanoke, Franklin and Montgomery counties, along with recommendations for avoiding the problem.

The first thing to remember is that it's illegal to feed bears in Virginia, and this includes even inadvertent feeding. That means that if bears are getting into dog food on your back porch, your garbage, your bird feeders, or even licking the grease off an outdoor grill, it's your responsibility to remove these attractions.

My neighbor Jenny Chapman, who lives around the mountain from me in Slings Gap, has concluded that, as painful as it may be for a bird lover, it's best simply not to feed the birds in the warm months if you live in bear country.

"At the first sign of bear activity, I take anything away that could be of interest to a bear," she told me. "The hummingbird feeders come in, I make sure there's no garbage -- and that breaks the bears' habit of foraging in your yard.

"I put the other feeders back up in the fall. That seems to have worked."

Chapman and her husband, Peter, have discovered that almost nothing will stop a hungry bear. The animals pulled feeders off a bracket that was 10 feet in the air. They bent wrought-iron shepherd's crooks that were holding feeders down to the ground.

"They're just immense, amazingly strong animals," she said.

Despite the trouble, Jenny Chapman says she is on the bears' side.

"I don't want to see bears paying for bad human behavior," she said. "After all, they're just doing what they evolved to do, and it has nothing to do with being 'bad.' "

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries will sometimes help remove problem bears, but their preferred approach is peaceful coexistence.

For citizens who need assistance with a problem bear, the department's law-enforcement dispatch number is (804) 367-1258.

To request a copy of the DGIF's pamphlet with tips for living in bear country, call (434) 525-7522. A video on living with black bears in Virginia is available at www.dgif.virginia.gov/video/?video=1.