Bear Activity Peaks in Late Summer — Is Your Trash Secured?

If it feels like bear sightings around Deep Creek Lake pick up every August and September, that’s not a coincidence. Late summer through fall is when black bears enter a feeding phase called hyperphagia. Which is one of the single biggest reasons homeowners without bear-resistant Trash Locker straps see trash-related encounters spike this time of year.

What is Hyperphagia, and Why Does It Matter to You?

Starting in late summer, black bears shift into survival mode ahead of winter. They can spend up to 20 hours a day eating, seeking out as many calories as possible to build fat reserves for hibernation. During hyperphagia, a bear is not just hungry. The bear investigates every smelly food source, including your trash can.

This is exactly when unsecured trash becomes the biggest liability for homeowners in Garrett County. A can that’s never been touched all summer can suddenly become a target in August, simply because bears are searching harder and traveling farther for food.

Why This Season Is Different

During hyperphagia, bears aren’t just passing through — they’re actively foraging, which means:

• More frequent visits to residential areas, even ones without a history of bear activity
• Bolder behavior, since food scarcity pressure outweighs typical caution around human activity
• Faster habituation, because a single successful trash raid can turn into a repeat visit within days
• Longer damage if a property sits empty during a rental gap or end-of-season closing

For vacation properties around the lake, this lines up with exactly the time many owners start spacing out visits as the summer season winds down, leaving more opportunity for a bear to find an easy meal and keep coming back.

Your Best Defense: A Bear-Resistant Trash Locker Strap

This is the exact scenario our bear-resistant Trash Locker straps were built for. Sunrise Sanitation partnered with Primacy Solutions, which created the straps, to bring a tested, proven solution to our customers. Tested and proven on Sunrise Sanitation’s red trash cans, the straps lock your lid securely shut regardless of how determined or hungry a bear is. Unlike a bungee cord or a brick on the lid, they’re built to hold up against real pressure, and real bears.

If you already have Sunrise service, adding bear-resistant Trash Locker straps before bear activity peaks this fall is a simple way to protect your property without changing anything else about your routine.

Don’t Wait for the First Encounter

Once a bear finds a food source, it remembers. The best time to add bear-resistant Trash Locker straps is before that first successful raid, not after. If you’re a current Sunrise customer, contact us to add Trash Locker to your service. If you’re not yet a customer, you can sign up for residential service here and add Trash Locker from day one.

Keep bears out of your trash, keep bears wild, and keep your property mess-free all season long.