It’s finally time for the Bears to den for the winter. We seem to have had an abundance of bears this year. It is the Black Bear we have here. We had at least three who visited us frequently this summer. We had a sow with two cubs, as in the picture, a sow with a single cub, and what was probably a single male. He looked big enough to be male. Early in the summer after just waking up they were hungry. They destroyed one birdfeeder and the sow with the single cub grabbed another one and walked off with it. It was our fault for not taking the birdfeeders down soon enough.
They are generally shy and if you tell them to leave, they generally do. You have to watch that you don’t accidentally get between the sow and her cub or cubs. You can step out on your deck early in the morning and find yourself face to face with a bear particularly if you have barbecue grill. They can smell the remains of anything cooked on it and that’s what attracts them. Because they are wild animals, it’s best not to try to make friends with them because of their unpredictability. They are very strong animals. I remember watching one tearing apart an old log to get at the wood ants in it. It seemed to be having no problem shredding the log, and I thought the log must be rotten. After the bear left, I went over and there was no way I could’ve even started to tear that log apart.
They are very good eating. It’s a dark red meat and generally it does not have a gamy flavor. This time a year they are also very fat preparing for hibernation. The early settlers used bear grease for all sorts of things from lubricating axles to slicking down their hair. Finding sources of fat was a problem for settlers and could lead to a dietary disease. The settlers could generally find lots of rabbits, but they lacked the fat needed to prevent health problems. I’ll leave you with the story my son told me. A group of city hunters recently bagged a bear and after skinning it out, they abandoned the carcass because skinned out it looked too much like a person to them!
Any questions or comments?
One Response
skinned out, that puts a different cut on it.