Bears are not true hibernators and can be woken from their winter naps.
Bears are not true hibernators.
Comes the cold weather, they sleep. And like all sleepers, they can wake up.
And just about now, with weather changing each day, they can be awake, scrounging around looking for that one last dinner to fatten up on before finding a den or just about anywhere to cuddle up.
What brings this to mind is a caller who said he saw a NFL-sized black bear snuggled beneath a large blowdown and apparently cutting a few z’s.
More than one person over the years has reported a bruin sleeping the winter beneath a tree.
I had the great privilege (?) years back to climb in bed with a bear while it snoozed the good snooze. Of course it was out cold, put deep under by tranquilizers from the biologists who were attaching radio collars and ear tags.
This column reminds readers that our resident black bear is not the cuddly cutie some would try to make you believe.
While most black bear attacks are made on those who crowd them, not hunters, there are a fair number of attacks recorded on sportsmen and those who approach them with cameras as they feed in a dumpster and bears that are shopping. Yup, shopping, for groceries or hoping to swipe a pie.
The latest report was of a 28-year-old hunter, Lisa Lang of Clam Falls, Wis.
She was in her tree stand when a 400-pound-plus sow ventured by with four cubs in tow.
The AuCoin Report, which reported the incident, said something spooked one cub and it climbed the tree adjacent to Lang. The sow climbed the hunter’s tree and bit her in the leg before she beat it off. It took 40 stitches to close the woman’s wounds.
National Geographic reported the black bear is responsible for more attacks on humans than any other of the species. Of course there are more black bears than any other species, by far, and they appear to be on the increase.
How big do they get? An 800-pound animal was shot this past hunting season, while a bruin raised in cavity that recently died weighed 1,100 pounds. Biologists report animals raised in cavity grow to greater weights.
A farmers’ market, I believe it was in Hadley, had a large bear in it aisles helping itself when the owner appeared. The bear was finally invited out, settling unhappily in a nearby dumpster.
A hilltown woman some time ago reported a bear walked through a screen door that wasn’t open and helped itself to a fresh baked pie until beaten off with a broom, which is not a recommended method of getting one to say goodbye.
I received calls from two people who said they put up their bird feeders once the cold weather struck, and the feeders were knocked down by one or more bears.
This most recent attack set me checking into the various reports.
First, a shocker. I always figured a big bruin went around 300 pounds. Several times I would have sworn they grow to ten feet tall and weighed in at ten tons.
Close encounters can get you thinking that way. I had a huge bruin treed by dogs and marked for tranquilization come down the tree at a rate that would challenge the drop speed of a broken elevator, barfing on me all the time.
The biologists I accompanied said I flew through the air several feet to avoid it.
Another time I crept into a den with a biologist to drag a sleeping sow into the open for study. I won’t say how big it appeared, only that I felt about the size of one of Gulliver’s Lilliputians.
Once while deer hunting on a very steep mountainside in Hawley, I got between a sow and cubs, and she displayed her displeasure by smashing saplings and growling like a Sherman tank stuck in the mud.
It was then I learned a human could back down a steep incline with a slug gun leveled at a bruin.
U.S. Sportsmens Alliance studies show mature males usually range from 300 to 500 pounds. A 100-pound animal can handle a large man like a dog shaking a rag.
Black bears will often sleep in tree branches, which is interesting as one of my hobbies is sleeping under trees.
Bruins can run 30 miles per hour and have been seen outrunning whitetail deer. A 10-mile swim is within their capabilities. I wish our hockey Boston Bruins could get a giant black bear to skate with Zdeno Chara.
While they are 75 percent vegetarian, the balance of their food is anything dead or alive, and they will put up with multiple stings while raiding a honey tree or domestic hive.
Like all game, they are high on the health food menu – low fat, no steroids, no false coloring or the other stuff that taints domestic meat.
While they can grow close to a thousand pounds if they live their maximum life span of about 20, at birth they are about eight inches long, pink and hairless. But not for long.
While hunters are their main enemy, wolves are second in the bear-killing category. Cars are a distant third.
AT LARGE: Moose are showing up in bigger numbers each passing year and are at the point where Fish and Wildlife should be considering a controlled-number hunting season.
One moose went nose to nose with granddaughter Natalie and Matt Hill’s motion camera, located some 12 feet up a tree.
Moose can grow up to 1,500 pounds, and that is a lot of steak on the hoof.
Anyone who believes they can only lumber have not seen one kick into high gear and burn rubber until it reaches 35 miles per hour, the speed of a ruffed grouse. And like the bear, it can trek some 10 miles at a splash.
It is a beautiful sight to see one with a giant shovel of a rack plowing through water as we did on our trips to Labrador and Newfoundland.
It is a vista right up there with the elegant swimming of caribou, which we witnessed while visiting the sub-Arctic on a wild brook trout and caribou hunt.
Their migration is continuously dogged by bears snapping up the weak and small.
Our tents in the distant north, as well as the outhouses, were surrounded by barbed wire.
My favorite outhouse tale involved the late outdoor icon Stan Berchulski, who spotted me sitting in a long-abandoned backhouse where a long-ago farmhouse once stood.
He apparently caught me with my pants down, napping, rifle cradled on my lap, and unbeknownst to this sleeping beauty he tied the door shut, stacked up dry brush complete with enough greenery to set up plenty of smoke, and set it on fire while yelling “Fire!”
Oh, I evened things up with Stan the Man, almost. But that’s another story.
KIDS FISHING: A national study by the Outdoors Foundation reports the second most popular outdoor activity for kids 6 and older is fishing, with more than half of the kids taking part, totaling 45.5 million participants.
Leading the study was a combination of running, jogging and walking, with 50.2 million participants.
Other popular outdoor activities in order of preference are road and mountain biking, 42.4 million; car, RV and backyard camping, 42.3 million, and hiking, 32.4 million.
HIP: The Western Mass Duck Hunters Association reminds waterfowl hunters that a different H.I.P. number is needed in each state you hunt in.
NO ENTRY: Hunters and others are reminded by Knightville/Littleville Park Ranger Tom Wanauickas that it is illegal to force your way through or around a locked gate on public land. He said foul weather has required the flooding of Knightville three times, causing heavy damage to pheasant cover there.