When bears leave their winter dens, they search for any food source that will help restore fat reserves lost during hibernation. Winter-killed animals provide immediate sources of protein, and hungry bears will strongly defend this and other food sources against perceived threats. Carcasses and freshly killed animals should serve as a point of caution-a red flag to make a detour away from the area. As snow banks recede, bears also dig up wildflower bulbs and burrowing rodents.

Adult male bears usually emerge from hibernation by mid to late March, followed by females without cubs. Female bears accompanied by cubs emerge later in the spring and are extremely protective of their young.

Park visitors are reminded to never approach a bear under any circumstances. This is particularly important for situations involving a bear near a carcass and other food sources, or a female bear with her cubs.

With the increased activity of bears, appropriate precautions must be taken. Visitors are advised to carry bear spray, keep it easily accessible and know how to properly handle it. Backcountry hikers should exercise good judgment, stay alert, and follow these recommended safety precautions: make noise, travel in a group of three or more, and maintain a 100-yard distance from bears at all times.

Visitors should report any bear sightings or signs to the nearest visitor center or ranger station as soon as possible. Timely reporting will help to keep bears away from unnatural food sources and allow park staff to provide important safety messages to visitors about bear activity.

Access to human food and garbage usually leads to food-conditioned bears. When bears lose their fear of humans, they often become a nuisance and a safety concern. Park visitors are reminded to keep food, garbage and other odorous items unavailable to bears at all times by storing attractants inside vehicles, by disposing of garbage in a bear-resistant trash can or dumpster, and by keeping personal items-such as backpacks or drink containers-with them at all times, especially when they contain food.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Five years after the U.S. housing bust sent sales and prices plunging, the spring home-buying season is pointing to a long-awaited recovery.

Reduced prices, record-low mortgage rates, higher rents and an improving job market appear to be emboldening many would-be buyers. Open houses are drawing crowds. A wave of foreclosures is leading investors to grab bargain-priced homes.

And many people seem to have concluded that prices won’t drop much further. In some areas, prices have begun to tick up.

Interviews with more than two dozen potential buyers, sellers, brokers, Realtors and economists suggest that confidence is up and that sales will move slowly but steadily higher.

“The biggest challenge that we’ve had over the past four years is fear – fear that the economy is collapsing, that property values are collapsing, that the world is coming to an end,” says Mark Prather, a broker at ERA Buy America Real Estate in La Palma, Calif. “The fear factor is all but gone.”

Prather says the number of prospective buyers who contacted his company last month was about 35 percent more than a year ago.

The spring buying season got an early lift-off from an uncommonly warm January and February – a winter that was the best for sales of previously occupied homes in five years. Permits to build houses and apartments rose in February to their highest level since 2008.

“People feel much more confident,” said Steve Brown, co-owner of real estate company Irongate Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, who says sales jumped more than 16 percent for the first two months of 2012 over the same period last year. “There’s no question there’s a good feeling in the marketplace.”

Some analysts detected a slight uptick in prices for February and March. CoreLogic, a real estate data firm, says prices for homes not at risk of foreclosure – about two thirds of the market – rose 0.7 percent in February. It was the first increase in four years. Price gains occurred both in some hard-hit areas, such as Phoenix, and some still-thriving areas like New York and Washington.

In Miami, the average sales price has surged 14 percent in the past year, according to Trulia, a real estate data firm. In Phoenix, the average is up 13 percent, in Pittsburgh 9 percent.

Earnings reports Friday from two big banks suggested that more people are taking out mortgages. JPMorgan Chase issued 6 percent more mortgages from January through March than it did a year ago and got 33 percent more applications. Wells Fargo issued 54 percent more mortgages and received 84 percent more applications.

Still, few think the housing industry is nearing a return to full health. For that to happen, a robust job market would be needed. More hiring would give more people the money and job security to buy. That would help boost sales and prices.

Such areas as Atlanta, suburban Las Vegas and central California show few signs of recovery. And in some others – from Seattle to Cleveland – home prices have continued to slip. The average has dropped 9 percent in Seattle over the past 12 months and 7 percent in Cleveland.

But in many parts of the country, including thriving areas of Boston, Dallas and Seattle, confidence is rising along with prices. Among the reasons:

- Hiring has strengthened. Each month from January through March generated a solid average of 212,000 jobs. Unemployment has sunk from 9.1 percent in August to 8.2 percent. More job security tends to embolden more people to invest in a home. In Dayton, for example, the University of Dayton is hiring for a new engineering research center, General Electric is hiring hundreds of contractors and the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are expanding.

- Loans remain cheap. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 3.88 percent. That’s just above the 3.87 percent reached in February – the lowest since long-term mortgages were first offered in the 1950s.

- Homes are more affordable. Nationwide, home prices are down 34 percent since 2006.

- Americans are more confident. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s survey of consumer confidence rose in March for a seventh straight month to its highest level in 13 months.

Also fueling interest are signs that home values are finally stabilizing. One factor that had slowed purchases after the housing boom ended in late 2006 was fear that a home would lose value soon after its purchase.

But the price declines slowed toward the end of 2011, according to the Wells Fargo/Case-Shiller home price index. And CoreLogic says the average price nationally rose slightly in January and February.

“Unless prices went down, I don’t think we would have ever been able to afford a home,” said John Henschel, 37, an information technology consultant who will move with his family into a five-bedroom house in Wheaton, Ill., in May. “But we feel like prices aren’t going to go back down. We’re confident. So why not?”

When the landlord on their Chicago apartment told them he was selling it, Henschel and his wife decided it was time to buy. The home they bought for nearly $450,000 could have fetched more than $570,000 six years ago, according to housing website Zillow.com.

On a rainy Saturday this month in long-struggling Riverside, Calif., 12 families visited a three-bedroom house priced at $199,999. Ten others stopped by in the first hour of the next day’s open house. By the end of the weekend, two buyers had made offers.

“We’re seeing more buyer activity this spring than we’ve seen in probably four years,” said Liane Thomas, the broker who was showing the house.

Prices in the area could rise in coming months because the supply of homes for sale in Riverside is down – from nearly 19,000 last year to 13,000 in February.

Many potential buyers are hunting for deals in places that were especially hurt by the housing bust. In Sarasota, Fla., which boasts wide sugar-sand beaches, condos are selling for an average of $325,000, compared with more than $550,000 at the height of the boom, said Marc Rasmussen, a broker.

Homes nearing foreclosure account for nearly half of all properties on the market, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse survey. That compares with 10 percent in healthy economies. Many are receiving multiple offers because their prices have plunged.

In Phoenix, a foreclosed home offered for $77,000 that had been vandalized received 21 offers last month at or near the asking price – roughly the price it sold for. The average time a home sits on the market in Phoenix has dropped from 114 days last year to 90 days, according to the Cromford Report, a data research group.

In suburban Washington, D.C., Rory Obletz and his wife have been saving to buy after renting for six years. Obletz, 27, failed in two previous bids for single-family homes. He’s hoping a third bid – about $10,000 above the asking price of $399,000 for a home in Silver Spring, Md. – will succeed this month.

“One home we went to, it was under contract by the time we walked out of the house,” Obletz said. “If you really want to get something, you don’t have a lot of time to think about it.”

It isn’t just bargain-hunting families seeking homes. Investors are increasingly buying single-family houses, fixing them up and re-selling them or converting them into rentals.

Investors are out-bidding many first-time buyers on cheaper homes in particular. Sales of homes between $100,000 and $250,000 have jumped nearly 19 percent over the past year. For homes between $250,000 and $500,000, sales are up 13 percent.

More expensive homes, from $500,000 to $750,000, whose sales tend to contribute the most to the U.S. economy, are up a smaller 6.7 percent.

For buyers seeking to move up to a bigger home or to relocate, the toughest challenge is often selling the home they’re in. According to CoreLogic, about 11 million homeowners are “underwater” – they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth.

Yet for first-timers like Obletz, who have been saving and watching as homes have become more affordable, the time feels right.

“Rent is a little more expensive, and we have the money, so we might as well jump on it,” he says.

The Jackson Wyoming Real Estate Market is experiencing an upsurge in buyers especially in the below $1 million price range.

_

Veiga reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writer Tamara Lush in Sarasota, Fla., contributed to this report.

Total MLS statistics
2011 Total Sold  205  Average Sales Price   $597,595  $Volume $122,507,095
2102 Total Sold  215   Average Sales price  $505,728  $Volume $108,731,633

Jackson Hole
2011 Total Sold   49  Average Sales Price   $1,217,408  $Volume $59,653,000
2012 Total Sold   72  Average Sales Price   $1,093,387 $Volume $78,723,928

Star Valley
2011 Total Sold   34  Average Sales Price  $156,494    $Volume $5,320,800
2012 Total Sold   53  Average Sales Price  $186,700   $Volume $9,895,105

Teton Valley Idaho
2011 Total Sales  52 Average Sales Price  $268,415    $Volume $13,957,595
2012 Total Sales 63  Average Sales Price  $163,223    $Volume $10,283,100

Star Valley has had a 155% increase in total number of sales for the quarter. Average Sales Price has increased by 119% for the first quarter.

New signs that lower the nighttime speed limit from 45 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour on the first four miles of the road could be in place as early as next fall, WYDOT district engineer John Eddins said.

“My goal is to go through the process that we have to go through, state statute-wise, to change the speed limit,” Eddins said Monday.

“The core justification for that is a proactive approach to see if we can get people to avoid hitting moose. I’m looking at it from a safety standpoint. An animal the size of a moose could cause a serious … accident.”

Recent collisions have left five moose dead along the corridor.

Studies on whether lower speed limits actually reduce animal-vehicle collisions show mixed results, Eddins said. At a community forum last week, Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation executive director Leigh Work agreed, saying the evidence supporting lower speed limits is “not as substantiated” as some other methods used to reduce the collisions.

“Since there isn’t any solid evidence out there, I’m treating it as an experiment,” Eddins said. Senior transportation officials support the new nighttime speed limit “with the caveat that we use it as a four-mile test section. Does reducing the speed limit reduce animal-vehicle wildlife collisions?”

Eddins also said he’s working with residents and county officials to study clearing brush from the side of the road, a suggestion that some say would be the most effective way to cut moose mortality. Community input on brush clearing and lower speed limits is important, Eddins said.

“I would like to get back together with those who are interested and have another meeting,” he said.

At a forum last week, citizens said lowering the speed limit on the first 7 miles of Highway 390 is the best way to prevent moose-vehicle collisions.  About 80 people were at the meeting at the  Old Wilson Schoolhouse Community Center.

The forum, sponsored by the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, included representatives from the Wyoming Department of Transportation, Teton County, Wyoming Highway Patrol and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Wilson resident Sheila McCann summed up the feeling of many in the audience when she told WYDOT district engineer John Eddins that she was attending the meeting “to permanently lower the speed limit.”

“What does it take to permanently lower the speed limit to 35?” she asked, drawing applause.

Others echoed the sentiment. “I don’t really understand why it will take so long when so many moose are already killed,” Wilson resident Mila Zvegintzov said. Zvegintzov said she’s lived in Wilson for five years and, during that time, she hasn’t heard of any moose being hit near the Fish Creek Bridge, where the speed limit is 25 miles per hour.

Cutting speed limits on the road is just one option the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation is considering, said executive director Leigh Work.

Wildlife collisions on Highway 390 have “been an ongoing issue for … more than 20 years,” Work said. “It’s in prime moose habitat with cottonwood trees and willows. This isn’t a situation that is going to go away.”

Work said she and her staff have come up with four options that could help reduce the number of collisions: permanent radar signs that have an electronic display that shows how fast people are driving; lighting to make moose more visible at night; brush clearing that could deter moose from congregating on roadsides and give drivers better line of sight around curves; and variable speed limit signs with electronic displays that could be changed when wildlife are on the road.

“It has to be a multi-faceted solution,” she said.

Patty & Jerry   The Teton Team