June 2, 2026 – Slinger, Wi – An exciting way to start a Tuesday for Holly Nowak of Slinger. “I was walking out of my bedroom and past the patio door when I saw something moving,” she said. It was a black bear strolling through her backyard. The encounter happened around 5:41 a.m. near Nordic Drive, just east of the wooded area surrounding the Slinger water tower.
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“I honestly had to think for a second, where am I?” said Nowak. “Because we went to Tennessee a few months ago and I went there honestly wanting to see bears.”
Once the surprise wore off, excitement quickly took over.
“I got really excited because I love animals,” she said. “I just wanted to get outside and watch it and take a video.”
Nowak watched as the bear calmly wandered along the tree line behind several condominium units.
“The bear was just strolling along very peaceful,” she said. “I tried making some noise for it to stop and look a little bit, but it didn’t. It just kept walking right along all the tree line and going down all the perimeters of all of our backyards.”
Although thrilled by the sighting, Nowak admitted she was somewhat nervous.
“I was hoping to see it again, a little scared to take the dog outside,” she said. “But yeah, I was very excited. My heart is still pounding. I’m definitely more worked up this morning going off to work.”
Nowak said she has lived in Slinger her entire life and has never seen a black bear in her backyard before.
“First time. First time,” she said. “I just moved to this condo in February, but I lived in other areas. I grew up in Slinger.”
She recalled her mother, who also lives in Slinger, often thought a bear might someday appear nearby.
“My mom said that she always thought she would see a bear and she would always tell people, and people always thought she was crazy,” Nowak said. “She never did.”
The bear appeared to emerge from a heavily wooded hillside near the water tower and traveled behind the condominium complex, which borders a wooded corridor near the Slinger Middle School.
“There’s a big hill, like a huge hill, and all woods right behind us,” said Nowak. “It came from one end and did the whole perimeter of all of our backyards.”
While some residents keep bird feeders on their decks, Nowak said there was no obvious food source attracting the animal.
The sighting comes as black bear populations continue to expand across Wisconsin, with young bears often traveling long distances in search of new territory. For Nowak, however, the early morning visitor was a memorable experience she won’t soon forget.
“What a great story,” she said. “Really, really neat.”
UPDATE: About 10 minutes after this story posted, another Slinger resident chimed in with her bear sighting. Deb Dierbeck said she spotted a black bear roaming through her yard around 5:28 a.m. “My dog was going crazy,” she said.
Dierbeck couldn’t get a good shot with her camera so she checked her security camera on the deck and it captured a great photo. “I’m on Nordic Lane and I watched the bear walk right past my window,” she said. “The bear just walked though the yard and into the woods behind my house.”
Dierbeck said she called Slinger Police to file a report. “I live near the Middle School and was concerned about the students and I just wanted to let them know,” she said.
“I was kind of laughing about it because I’ve wanted to move up to the north woods and now maybe I don’t need to.”
About two weeks ago Dustin Collett from the Town of Kewaskum said he saw a black bear near Townline Road and Highland.
Local bear expert Chucker Dreher said Townline Road is the normal route he’s seen black bears take as then travel south. “You remember that one sow with two cubs from a couple years ago? They came down past Townline and ended up a couple people saw them before the mom and a cub got hit by a car near Cabela’s.”
It was November 2020 when the sow and her cubs were spotted on a trail camera.
Dreher said this one is probably a young male, just exploring and looking for food.
The DNR said it is unusual for black bears to be wandering this far south. Click HERE to read more.
