Bear Trap!
After the bear came back a second night, and bashed in the Mighty Hunter’s front door, he called the game warden who brought this impressive culvert trap over and parked it in the back yard. About eight last night we heard clanging noises and went out to watch the warden set the trap and bait it with bacon and raw chicken … there we were, the MH, me, and all the neighbors, watching the game warden and thinking about bears.
So, off to sleep we went, half an ear cocked for bear noises outside. I had bear dreams all night … first the bear drove up in a green Subaru Forester, wearing a jaunty Tyrolean hat like the bear in Richard Scarry. The bear got out of the car, took off his hat and then, as if it was his job, morphed into an enormous scary bear in the backyard. Sort of like the great big bear that stood up and woofed at me and the dogs two years ago in Suce Creek. A big big dream bear on all fours looking at us and swinging his head back and forth, mad at us for wanting to trap him.
Alas, the bear either moved on to greener birdfeeders, or was wise to the ways of culvert traps, because this morning the trap was still there, door wide open, empty. Let’s hope the bear took the hint and moved along — because as exciting as the prospect of trapping a bear in the backyard might have been, I’d really rather the bear was out there doing what it should be doing — being a wild animal.
3 thoughts on “Bear Trap!”
Bear season indeed! We were down on 9th Street Island yesterday, when around 3 or 4 pm our dog suddenly began barking at something directly behind us on the gravel bar. I turned around, and for a split second thought to myself “where did that dog come from…?” (as it was only about 20 feet away, and a bit on the scrawny side) –then logic took over just as the bear wheeled around and retreated back to the other side of the river. Yep, it was a small black bear, who came unbelievably close to us at only 20 or 30 feet. I thought surely he must have seen us, and perhaps was coming to beg…? my SO suggested that he likely didn’t see us (even though we were in plain site), but the breeze must have prevented him nor our dog of having any idea of one another.
5 minutes later he scampered out of brush about 100 yards upstream from us and crossed there. I was surprised to see him still that close, obviously a much larger distance– but unusual behavior nonetheless. Haven’t seen a black bear that acclimated to humans since I was a kid in NW MT, but it sounds as though this particular bear is gaining a reputation for himself, as we’ve heard of a number of sightings & incidents of a smallish, not likely mature, little black bear with grizzly colorings, right around 9th Street Island.
Can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the poor bugger… it’s time for him to find a new home.
(P.S. I discovered your blog only a couple months ago and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I want to say thank you for sharing yourself so openly with every T,D & H on the world-weird-web. Thanks for the gardening tips, too. 🙂
I wonder if it’s the same little bear we saw just upstream from the lumber mill last summer? He was just an itty bitty guy, all alone, in late summer. Looked like he’d been kicked out of the nest a little young.
And as for sharing — years ago I took a class with Gary Snyder at UC Davis. One of my classmates came in a little wigged out because in her bibliography class they’d been in the special collections looking at Gary’s old diaries. It was just weird, she said. He replied that if as the Buddhists believe, we have no self, then there’s nothing to “protect” is there? The trick is though, he continued, that this means you have to own even your bad behavior, which is why most of us try to put on a good front. So, that’s the inspiration behind my attempt to be reasonably transparent here (although of course, the blog is a persona as is most public writing).
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