View from the North 40 - No lions and tigers, just bears on the brain

Black bears in the Bear Paws. Grizzly bears on the plains — one of them that mauled a guy near Choteau. Bears, you can’t predict them. I should be using my brain to go over the recommended Be Bear Aware checklist, but really, this bear business is reminding me that some of my very favorite stories in life involve bears.

In fact, here’s a good cautionary tale involving a bear:

In his capacity as a Montana game warden, my dad would occasionally have to live-trap a nuisance bear. He would then haul it to a remote area, preferably hundreds of miles out of the bear’s territory, and turn it loose. The hope is that the bear will not return to its former territory where it was getting into trouble, such as killing livestock or raiding garbage cans and food storage containers.

The live trap, itself, was a section of culvert, about 4 or 5 foot tall and 8 foot long, with heavy gauge metal grates covering the ends. It sat on a trailer to be towed almost anywhere. The front grate was welded to the culvert, but the back one was in a frame that was hoisted up and secured into place with a cable that was attached to a trigger. This trigger was a large hook at the front end of the trap that was baited with something tasty.

Please note that “tasty foods” are something that bears and humans rarely agree upon. Nevertheless, the bear had to enter the culvert to reach the bate and one little tug released the cable, allowing the door to slam down into place to capture the bear.

If a bear had become a nuisance in or near a camping area during the summer, the whole family would pack up the camping gear and the live trap, and go hang out at the lake.

Yes, Dad was hauling his small children into known bear danger areas — it was the ’70s, kids weren’t as precious back then.

Honestly, it was a lot of fun. He’d check the trap after dark and before sunup, check fishing licenses for a few hours during the day, and the rest of the trip was all family fun and games. It sometimes got rowdy, but those are happy stories for another day.

The trap had to be checked often because 1) people don’t always conduct themselves with a logical sense of self-preservation around a trapped bear, but also 2) the trap has no amenities, like water or food, for the bear, and it’s too small to hang out in for a day or so. Also, frankly, bears have the same reaction to nervousness as humans, so they pace around and go to the bathroom — a lot.

Because you likely don’t realize, I’ll explain that the three P’s — pacing, peeing, pooing — create a sort of soupy mess of bodily waste that pools in the bottom of the trap — a mess the bear has to live in until it’s released. It’s not pretty. But it’s an important part of the story.

Dad got a call one day that a black bear was getting into garbage cans and raiding coolers at Logan State Park, a 17-acre getaway along Middle Thompson Lake between Libby and Kalispell. So, like Batman, he answered the call to provide aid, and the Burkes went camping.

Dad set up the trap in a secluded area and caught the bear that first night. Wanting to take care of it right away, sun-up found him at the trap, hooking up the trailer.

He looked up from where he was cranking down the hitch to see a little old lady, still in her housecoat, dragging a teacup poodle who knew better toward the back end of the trap. He stepped out where the woman could see him and told her, “Ma’am, don’t come any closer. There’s a live bear in the trap and he’s a bit upset.”

“Oh, really?” she said, reeling in the dog by its leash so she could cradle it safely in her arms as she leaned forward to see this alleged bear. But with the sparse morning light, shade from the thick canopy of pines and the black bear hunkered down in the shadows at the front of the trap, she could see nothing.

Much to the little dog’s dismay, the woman took a few more steps forward to better see into the shadows. Dad explained that the bear was nervous and convinced her to watch from 10 feet away, then he went back to work, while the woman spoke comfortingly to her shaking dog.

Soon enough, Dad noticed the bear showing signs of aggression and turned to find the woman with her face inches from the end of the trap. Before he could rescue her, though, the bear lunged the 8-foot length of the trap and slapped its paws against the grate, splattering the woman from face to feet with bear poop soup.

To the little dog’s credit, it was splatter free, Dad reckoned. Fueled with adrenaline and little-dog flight instincts, it had shot 10-feet straight into the air at the bear’s first twitch and was already running for home before its own little feet hit the ground.

To the woman’s credit, she had snapped backward, but kept to her feet, and the only sound she made was to say, “Oh my,” as she slowly turned and followed the dog’s path back to the camper — both of them wiser and more learned in bear-aware thinking.

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To Dad’s credit, he didn’t laugh until the woman was out of earshot, but the story is now family lore at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40.com .