NORWAY – A black bear with a serious birdseed addiction traveled at least 70 miles in a couple of weeks from the woods of Parmachenee Township near the Canadian border to this Oxford County town.

The radio-collared sow was spotted along a Norway lake early Thursday afternoon, but dashed into the woods when local police arrived to investigate, said Maine Warden Service spokeswoman Deborah Turcotte.

The bear is believed to be the same bird feeder-trashing female from New Hampshire that followed the Androscoggin River into Maine to Livermore last year with its two yearling cubs.

“We’ve been involved with that New Hampshire bear over the last three weeks,” state wildlife biologist Chuck Hulsey said Thursday. “She has a long history of going after bird feeders.”

That’s why wildlife officials have repeatedly stressed that people take in their feeders in April, because that’s when bears come out of hibernation and are hungry after months of fasting.

“We have bears all over Maine that are out of hibernation now and this is when we regularly get calls about bears coming into people’s yards,” Hulsey said.

“That’s why I like to say that when you do your taxes on April 15 and pay the federal government, you should also take your bird feeders in until midsummer,” he said. “The birds don’t need the food, because there’s plenty of it out there in the woods this time of year.”

After the sow returned to Livermore last month with the now 2-year-old cubs, she was caught and relocated to the Parmachenee area northwest of Rangeley, Hulsey said.

One of two 80-pound cubs with her in Livermore was captured and sent to a program to learn how to survive in the wild. The other cub escaped and, as of Thursday, was still on the lam.

The mother bear was fed by people in New Hampshire for quite a few years, Hulsey said. “They tagged it there and released it and then it showed up in Jay last year.”

Wildlife biologists didn’t want to separate mama and her babies so they left them alone. Not so this year.

When state biologists captured the sow last month, they put a radio collar on her, Hulsey said.

They believed she would head to Rangeley and were waiting with dogs to chase her back into the woods. “Her behavior is a lot more of a challenge to change than that of her yearlings,” Hulsey said.

However, Rangeley wasn’t in her tour itinerary.

She was spotted in Rumford, Canton and Livermore a few days ago, and apparently decided to check out the more populous Norway-Paris region.

When authorities catch her again, they may try to relocate her farther away, but they won’t euthanize the sow. She hasn’t exhibited aggressive behavior toward people, Hulsey said.

If she started burglarizing buildings by breaking into them, that’s when wardens would have to seriously weigh that option, which is nearly always the end result of people feeding wild animals.

Both Hulsey and Turcotte advised people not to feed or approach wild animals such as the sow.

“The message we give people is, that if you don’t put feeders up in your yard, there’s no reason for bears to come into your yards,” Hulsey said.