Bears and rumors of bears have been cropping up in Mathews and Gloucester for a couple of weeks. Several residents have reported seeing a bear wandering around, from the Peach Point neighborhood in mid-Mathews to Figg Shop Road in Gloucester.

Joyce Dunn, who lives in Peach Point, which is off Route 14 between Foster and Ward’s Corner, said she had just brought her two dogs indoors last Thursday, when she looked out her patio door and saw what she thought was a big dog in her backyard. But as she gazed at the creature, she realized it wasn’t a dog at all, but a black bear.

“The dogs were going crazy,” she said. “It totally freaked me out … I probably overreacted.”

The bear roamed across Dunn’s property to the other side of the house and disappeared, she said. Dunn said that her daughter, Sharon Phillips, called Mathews Animal Control, and a sheriff’s deputy who dropped by said the bear was probably looking for new territory.

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