Dear friends,
This happened to a man named Mike, not very far from where we live. I will write more about what I think of the situation at the end of this story. See you there! :-)
Mary *********
HOW I SURVIVED A MAULING FROM A MOTHER BLACK BEAR Life and Death Battle with Mad Bear
Thursday, June 5, was an unusually pleasant spring day.
Taking my golden retriever, Bree, and the neighbours' lively young schnauzer, Arnie, for a walk, we headed out for a small, swampy lake along a nearby trail.
As we approached the lake, along the flank of Parker Mountain, I heard a muffled sound that might have been a breaking branch.
A few days earlier, I had seen a black bear and her two cubs grazing in a meadow another two kilometres up the valley, so I did not fancy continuing further. I back-tracked 30 metres up the trail, tied Bree to the other end of Arnie's leash and walked quietly along a ridge to get a high viewpoint.
I peered over the drop and saw the indistinct face of a bear in the undergrowth below. I thought wrongly, that I was looking at an adult bear.
I grasped the leash firmly and began to back and turn away, when the sow stood up on her hind legs two metres from me, just below the crest of the ridge. She was half-facing me, and there was a moment of silent, mutual, surprise.
Then, Arnie lifted his head and gave a long yodeling bark.
The bear came up and over the edge of the ridge as a rapid blur and hit me hard. I was lifted off my feet and plunged headfirst down the steep, shale-and-brush-covered slope.
From that moment, until the point some time later when I stumbled away from the conflict, I have few clear thoughts. The rest was lost in a welter of chaotic and frantic physical activity.
Luckily, Bree managed to slip her collar and must have fled for home. Arnie was not so lucky.
As I rolled down the slope, Arnie's leash snagged on the stem of a bush. I ripped the leash away, but as I got up I was hit from behind by the bear and went tumbling downward.
I think she kept knocking me down, then I would roll and get up, and this process was repeated several times.
My next memory is of standing in a grassy clearing at the bottom of the slope looking almost eye to eye at the bear, standing one metre in front of me. I think this was the moment I remember her swinging a right cross at me with her huge front paw.
She either missed or only caught me a small grazing blow.
Then, she launched herself at me and smashed her snout into my face. I went over backwards, rolled face down and wondered, clearly but briefly, whether this was the right opportunity to lie still and play dead. I could not bring myself to do so.
I reeled away, attempting to keep on my feet, and remember the bear driving hard into the small of my back several times. Then she stopped.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a haunting, almost beautiful, but deeply chilling scene. The bear was standing on all fours some 10 metres away, studying me, while Arnie was sitting in a relaxed manner, looking at me with a quizzical expression -- from behind her massive front legs.
I started bellowing at the bear, raised my arms high above me and advanced on the animal, hoping to drive her back up the slope to her cubs. She responded by charging me again.
I turned and stumbled into the snowberry bushes with her hitting me hard in the back several more times.
My next recollection is of seeing Arnie, lying down, still looking uninjured and very composed. The bear was out of sight. Then I am trying to get away from the bear's attack again.
Moments later, she stopped, and I saw her move back toward the dog, which was now out of my sight behind bushes.
I turned away and struggled up a slope, through the snowberry bushes, trying to regain the track I had been originally hiking on.
I heard two small, soft cries from the dog.
When I waded out of the bushes onto the track, I turned to see the bear crossing the slope we had tumbled down, moving toward the two cubs that had come out onto the crest of the ridge. There was no sign of Arnie.
The bear disappeared behind a large boulder at the base of a fir tree. I started yelling at the bear in the hopes of driving it and the cubs across the hillside, so that I could recover Arnie.
Nothing happened for a short time. Then, suddenly the bear appeared, and ran at full speed toward me. I backed up rapidly. She ran 50 or 60 metres, and then, to my relief, stopped, turned, and ran back to the boulder.
I continued shouting. After 10 minutes, I had not seen any sign of the bear or her cubs, but I did not think it wise to return immediately.
I hurried back to St. Andrews. There, I visited a friend's house and startled Jean with my bloody appearance. Another friend, Roy, agreed to take me back out to the attack area to retrieve Arnie and look for Bree. He collected his rifle, and we got into his 4X4 and drove just past the tree and boulder.
There was no sign of the bears.
Suddenly, there was a heart-thumping, deep, growling "woof" from close by, but still no sign of the bear. Then Roy looked up. She was 15 metres above us in the tree with her cubs.
There was no sign of Arnie. I picked up my intact glasses and searched and called for a few minutes without success. I walked back to Roy, and sadly gave up for the moment on my small friend.
We drove back and found Bree on my doorstep. I asked Jean to drive me to the Regional Hospital and asked Roy to organize a group to go back and protect the area from the bear's return in case Arnie had survived.
Either that afternoon, or the following day, conservation officers found Arnie's body at the foot of the Douglas fir.
The next day, they found the bear beside a freshly killed mule deer, and after she displayed unusually agressive behaviour to them, they shot her and the cubs.
When the officers visited me in hospital, I reluctantly agreed with their decision.
My injuries were surprisingly light given the length of the attack. I had surgery to repair multiple lacerations and puncture wounds on my face, arms and back. The care I was given during the three days in hospital was exceptional.
My main emotion during the attack was outrage that the bear could be so unusual in its behaviour, and desperation trying to get Arnie out safely. I was much too busy to feel either fear or pain.
This was not a fight; I simply attempted to minimize the punishment the bear delivered, and I cannot imagine any possibility of hurting such a powerful animal with my bare hands.
Bear bells, or an otherwise noisy approach might well have resulted in her retreating or hiding, and a non-event for me.
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So, dear friends:
Mike should have worn a bear bell, or he should have been singing. Possibly he should not have had the dogs with him because dogs can lead a bear back to you as they run to you, or they should have had bells on their collars.
I think Mike was very fortunate that the bear only butted him, hit him, and pushed him. It could very well have knocked him down and killed him. It might even have made a meal of him, as it was hungry enough to kill the mule deeer the next day. He should have abandoned the dogs and taken himself out of there as soon as possible after the first defense by the bear of her cubs, when she knocked him down the slope.
Trying to save the dog, and all the shouting, no doubt upset the mother bear more, whereas if he had left as soon as possible the bears might not have had to be shot.
That the mother bear took the cubs up the big Douglas Fir tree showed that she felt threatened. She must have felt even more threatened by their return in the 4X4, and later by the groups' return, so it isn't any wonder that the next day she was too agressive with the conservation officers. Poor bear.
The dog, Arnie, may have followed the bears to the tree, unless it was killed when it made the two soft little sounds, which is likely. But then why was it found dead at the base of the big Douglas Fir tree, but uneaten.
In any event, the man reacted instinctively, without time to assess the situation as I have here. I wish he had left as soon as possible, so that the three bears would still be alive. In bear country you can't afford to make mistakes like not making noises as you walk, especially when within a few days previously you had seen a mother bear and her cubs.
This whole story illustrates for you that Ben and I really live in a small settled area in the midst of forests and mountains extending 300 km and more in any direction, and surrounded by bear habitat.
It is really the people who have encroached on the bear's territory. The bears have to come down from the mountain in the spring to eat and fatten up. Cubs are born at the end of winter in the den. I think the cubs were yearlings or maybe even two year olds since Mike thought he saw the face of an adult bear down in the bushes just before the mother bear knocked him down the slope.
Personally, in the circumstances, I think the mother bear was remarkably well-behaved. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well to move bears to other habitat because then they are in other bear's territory which the other bears have had for a long time. I ask you -- how could that mother bear have run away from those conservation officers after experiencing all that upset?
About twenty years ago our son encountered a black bear as he came home late at night. He was taking a shortcut behind some backyards of houses in the next block from ours when he suddenly came face to face with a black bear. He immediately began walking backward and made soothing voice noises. The bear walked backward, too. Then he heard it go down on all fours and thumpety-thump away. He then did not continue on that path, but went to the street.
You're not supposed to leave dog food outside around here, or unclean barbeque utensils, or unsecured garbage cans overnight. Nothing should be left out that will attract bears, because we don't want people to be hurt, and we don't want bears to be hurt, either. Bears that get used to feeding from garbage cans or garbage dumps, or on other things that have the smell of humans on them become too used to humans, and become dangerous. Bears hanging around in residential areas are always killed.
Poor Bears. . . .
The End
Warm greetings to you all, Mary
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