The bears have names.  For a city person, seeing even one black bear in the wild is a rare and startling experience.  To see several at the same time from the deck of a bed and breakfast, and to hear one's hosts affectionately call out to them by such names as Bruno, Cocopuff, and Uglybear, is to pass from the startling to the exotic.  And yet, at the Wildernest Inn in Rough Run, West Virginia, such experiences are commonplace, especially in the fall, as the bears fatten themselves in preparation for winter.  The hosts and owners of the Wildernest, Stewart and Kathy Hornby, natives of, respectively, South Africa and Zimbabwe, have always loved animals and thought they would never find a similar combination of wildness and natural beauty when they left Africa in 1995.  But when, after a period of residence in Puerto Rico, they came to West Virginia seven years ago and purchased the Wildernest Inn, situated atop a steep and heavily wooded mountain in one of the most scenic areas in the state, they found to their delight that they would be sharing their mountain habitat with deer, foxes, raccoons, many species of birds, and a healthy population of black bears.  Now U.S. citizens, they have fallen in love with their mountaintop home, and visitors quickly come to understand why.

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