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Friday, October 30, 2015

Black Bears

This is a photo I took a few years ago of a mama black bear and her two cubs that had been hanging around our house for quite a while. She used us to train her cubs and if we were outside she would sit down and the cubs would cautiously start to come check us out. She would signal them and they would then run and climb up a tree. When she was sure they were properly trained she would show them where the good grass was or other things to avoid - like our dogs who were safely in the back yard. This photo was taken about 10' away from our elevated deck. Mother bear knew we were there but she continued to feed on grass right below us.

When the two cubs grew up and were on their own they still traveled together and came back to visit us several times. A few years ago Carol was walking our past dog Gypsy on her leash which we always do and she was down on the road in front of our house and myself and Bozwell were on the deck. Bozwell who never barks suddenly started to bark. Carol yelled up what was he barking at. I then told her it was the bear right next to her. Neither she nor Gypsy had seen the bear grazing along the edge of the road and I had not seen it either but Bozwell who is always vigilant saw it and barked a warning. Before I could blink Carol and Gypsy were on the deck huffing and puffing. She was 6-8' from the bear and then she was on the deck. The bear never stopped eating and ignored her and Gypsy.

I just submitted a bear blog to Mother Earth News that should be published early next week. It will be under the heading "Nature and Environment".

2 comments:

Gypsy said...

I'm not too afraid of black bears, but I always gave them their space when I lived in the North Carolina mountains.

Bruce said...

That has been our experience too Gypsy. Not all people understand that they are wild and when they tell you to back off that is a good idea. They had to close a state park here in Colorado due to people getting to close trying to take selfies with them. We once saw a husband in Custer Park direct his wife and two kids over to stand within a foot of a buffalo laying down so he could get a photo of them. Some people ignore warnings and do as they please and when things go wrong they blame the animal who generally is the one to suffer the consequences.