Living in the Pacific Northwest I have many bear stories This one involves a mother bear tossing apples down to her cub below. That is one thing. What people do not know about bears is that they talk. Yes, they talk. All the time she was tossing the apples down to her child, he/she was gobbling away and they- they talked.
I was not smoking anything! But this was communication in a form I had never witnessed ever before amongst animals. I am not talking about woofs or snorts; I am talking about sentences and paragraphs that involved emotion. I do get upset about their killings, their stuffing, mounting and disrespectful display of their bodies. It really bothers me. Bears are very special creatures, so are raccoons. I suspect if we monkeys ever exterminate ourselves, I hope the next replacement might come from these two specie.
Two days earlier, I had been in this pasture picking blackberries. I come to this apple tree and felt something strange about it. I look up and see this big black blob in it. I have no understanding of what it is. Suddenly I see a big flash of white teeth. Slow, learner that I am, I now put it all together. That is one angry bear, and it is right above my head. I scream and run to the road, hurdle (swear to god) the barb wire fence and keep running up to my driveway.
Looking over my shoulder I see the bear running in the opposite direction. Both of us were equally scared of each other. A few days later I watched the activity I described above. Not mentioned is that I also took my rifle and started shooting at the tree, hoping to frighten them off. In WA. State (at that time) there were no restrictions on hunting a bear. Even if it is a female with a cub.
Thankfully things have changed and one must now obtain a bear tag in order to kill one. The season overlaps deer and elk seasons, beginning in Sept. Most hunters pick up such a tag, just in case they come across a bear while hunting deer or elk. The meat, depending on what has been eaten is far better than deer. I have also eaten cougar, which was surprisingly good. Just recently, there was a story about a hunter who stumbled into a 7ft,.six hundred pound black bear while hunting deer. The picture reminded me of a Grizzly. I would not have wanted to meet that big guy. A local paper, printed that story and laid out that bear picture on the front page. This created a stir of controversy, as one Dolores was to find out.
I agree with one poster. “Maybe Dolores would have liked it better if the article had included some recipes for bear meat.” Oh, I near forgot … the mother bear with the cub was shot within the week.
(c) Herb Senft 2009
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