maybe the last thing you ever see

[wwace]

Yesterday while working in my yard cleaning up some stuff before it snows we had an unusual event happen. My neighbors German Shepard caught my eye running out the driveway and barking, several minutes before he had been barking at another dog but this time it was 3 grizzly bear cubs. Greg my neighbor was outside and trying to get his dog away from the bears. I grabbed my 870 loaded with slugs and buckshot and covered him until he was safe and the dog was inside, Only then was I able to take time to try and get a photo before they went into the woods. Luckily for us mama bear made no appearance or this could have been a deadly situation. A mother Grizzly will defend her cubs with terrifying swiftness, they are as fast as racehorses in rough terrain.

While it is a given that there are always bears in the Anchorage area you rarely see a grizzly/brown bear. Blackies are more apt to be sighted and we have seen many in the 21 years I have lived in this home. Grizzly are much more sneaky and dangerous. These cubs were 1.5 year olds weighing around 150lbs each. Themselves they are not any threat to humans really. Lobo weighs about 110 lbs and was right in the middle of them and they were not scared of him, thank god he listened to his owner and left the bears alone. We have no idea where the mom was or what happened to her, the tracks show the cubs came out of the creek just out of the frame and were headed down my lane. I called Fish & Game and they were sending the local biologist out to check on them.

Hopefully their mom was just somewhere out of sight and will reclaim her stray youngsters and keep them out of trouble as bears this age stand little chance of survival, they will either get killed by older males or learn to be garbage bears which is just bad news.

When outside in Alaska you should pay attention.

 

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[RGINN]

Whooooaaa!!! Very lucky the mom wasn't around. You could have handled it, but it might have been a pretty scary situation. When do grizzly cubs separate and strike out on their own? And I sincerely hope they don't become garbage bears, because that will be like signing their own death warrant.

 

[wwace]

generally cubs are ready to strike out on their own after their second winter but some stay until 3 from what I understand

 

[Tuberale]

Cool ... and lucky. An excellent reason for having a dog.

I had an unhappy meeting with a black bear. He was working his way upstream, checking under rocks for crawfish or something. All I could hear was this weird sound. Saw the bear was still coming toward me. Found a large branch on the pile of flotsam I was on, and waved it over my head, along with my 7-foot fishing pole. Bear didn't see me real good, but saw enough that he bolted up a brush-covered ravine and out of site in 10 seconds. I'd say he was going 30mph easy.

We've been getting lots of cougar sitings in Oregon. Game commission says there has never been a fatality from a cougar in Oregon. I'm not so certain.

 

[Arizona Bob]

Heh! I met a black bear once while deer hunting (12ga slug) in Maine with my grandfather. After a fresh snow, we were following deer tracks into the woods. I was out in front, and kept seeing the deer just disappear ahead of me. As we were coming to the end of the woods (leading into an open area) I saw a fallen tree (3+ feet in diameter). I decided to climb up on top of the log to get a better view. As I was standing on the log, I hear wood-breaking noise coming from my feet. I looked down just in time to see my right boot break thru the tree bark. I expected to plunge thru all the way to the other side, but I stopped after about 10 inches. By this time, my grandfather arrived to observe my situation. After a couple of seconds we heard groaning noises coming from the log. My grandfather cleared away some of the bark, and we were both staring at something black and furry. He pulled me off the top of the log and said, "Run!" I chased him all the way back out of the woods. I asked him. "What was that?" He replied, "Son, that was a hibernating black bear." That is as close as I ever want to get to any bear!