Bear With Me

Lately, I've been beary absorbed by bears.

Specifically, Black Bears. Which aren't black. They are LOTS of colors. See?

This is a Spirit bear, NOT a Polar bear. The Spirit Bear is a Black bear. Isn't it Gorgeous?

Did you hear about the lady who got bit on the butt? NO? LINK

My co-worker has a remote camera-feed attached to his house. He has it aimed at a deer feeder at the edge of the woods. Bears LOVE to investigate. They don't eat the pellets, it's just fun to play in them; tossing the pellets to the ground, pounds at a time. Sometimes the feeder is a victim too.

He showed me a clip of a sow and her cub. Momma bear was determined to investigate the whole thing, even though it was lashed and bolted and harnessed to the tree. She ripped that sucker off in seconds. Their power is immense!

The cub had the poop scared out of it; all you could see was it's hiney hightailing it out of there at the crashing sound of the huge bin.

It was pretty darned funny to watch and, they move at warp speeds!

No wonder they say you cannot outrun, climb or swim a black bear.

Even an adult bear can climb a 75 ft tree in seconds. As you can see,they don't need branches to use as holds like us humans would.

Pretty impressive, yes?

Grizzley's can't climb trees or so I've read.

Also, neither can you play dead with Black bears because they eat carrion. You will look good regardless.

You can play dead with a Brown bear or maybe a Grizzley, but not a Black. Did you know that?

Good thing the Black bear is, for the most part anyway, a laid back and easily startled creature, PROVIDED no one was stupid enough to allow them to get used to humans as a food dispenser.

I'm getting more interested in them because their population is growing. Sightings are becoming more frequent, even in the suburbs. I think it's really important to find a way to live with them BEFORE they are commonplace. LINK Mostly because once they figure out that you had food for them once, they'll keep coming back.

Persistence, thy name is Black Bear. Don't believe me? Look what Google found for me.

CUTE, yes?

See what I mean?

As much as I enjoy this photo op provided by this very acrobatic bear,

the truth is, this type of behavior will someday cost it it's life.

And that's what I"ve been learning. There are times during the year where bird feeders need to be put up responsibly or not at all. The human and bear contacts will always have one result ; the bear will die.

And it's not fair to THEM. Just because we want our photo ops does not give us the right to endanger them. And justify it by claiming "But they endangered us first!".

WE are the humans, the higher intellect and the stewards of the Earth. And the Black bear deserves that same respect.

And those are just some of the bare bear facts.

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YES I WATCHED MOONLIGHT TONIGHT!!

Oooh, ICK!

My DH was funny. He said, "I thought you had to kill a vampire with a stake through the heart."

LOL!!!

Um, nope, decapitation works quite well too.

And when Beth confronted him about his avoiding her, she's like Hello... "I FED you!"

That is such a funny line.

LOVED IT!

Did you see the PREVIEWS for next week? Tell me they didn't read any Sookie Stackhouse books. I dare you.

It's sooo there!