Close encounters of the bear kind

The bear burst out of the buckbrush heading down the hill coming in my direction as I was hunting deer in Island Park last week. I got ready to shoot, but I was not its intended target because it veered away from me. The two-year old cinnamon colored black bear had been spooked by my hunting partner and it was in a hurry to change locations.

I was surprised at the speed of the bear with its winter food supply tucked into the fat body as its wide butt disappeared in the brush.

Two days before our hunt opened, we received a flier in the mail about carrying bear spray with us. We only had one canister and my partner was carrying it. We will get another one.

The quick “hello” and “goodbye” reminded me of other experiences I have had with bears. Buying bear tags has been a common habit for me even though I have never hunted or shot one since I was a teenager. It has been a “just in case” protection to stay legal if ever I need to shoot one.

Black bears are generally very timid and stay away from human activity unless they find the easy food supply furnished by humans. Then they can become a nuisance.

I have always been fascinated by the yearly life cycle of bears. Their breeding, denning, hibernating and birthing is one that humans might enjoy.

Black bears usually breed in June or July after they have gained some weight after the big winter sleep. But through an adaptation called delayed implantation, t

he fertilized egg or eggs, called zygotes, do not immediately start to develop. This allows the female to go about her summer work of putting on a lot of fat without a growing fetus robbing her of some of the nutrition.

About the time for denning in the late fall, the zygotes leave the fallopian tube, attach themselves in the uterus and pregnancy begins.

Unlike grizzlies that excavate their dens, black bears usually find natural caves or holes in rock slides which they may improve for denning. But last fall I interrupted a black while deer hunting as it was digging a den on the mountain above Henrys Lake. I have found several dens along the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River canyon where a warm air vent comes from thermal activity through a rock slide.

Around mid January the female during hibernation gives birth to naked cubs weighing less than a pound each. The fat from the female’s body now allows her to develop milk and the cubs nurse and cuddle up to her for warmth. All this happens while she is asleep. If only humans were so blessed!

In April or May, the cubs, called coys, weighing about five pounds, will emerge from the den with the sow, ready to begin life in the great outdoors. Coys are slow maturing and are at risk of being killed by predators. Ironically, the greatest danger to them is from male black bears.

One of the first lessons the playful cubs are taught is to climb trees. Years ago while fishing at Cliff Lake in Montana in the spring, I watched as a sow forced her kids to stay in a tree.

The sow was feeding on elk carcass in the shallow water on the shore. Her two cubs were rolling and tumbling down the hillside; playfully not taking care of business. When they would get too far away she would growl at them. If they did not come back and go up the tree, she would run to them, swat them and up the tree they would go. Discipline is important in a coy’s life.

My meeting with bears while hunting, hiking, and huckleberrying has always been a pleasant one – may it continue to be. I hope to see others while “Living the Wild Life.”