An old bear experience

Its a good time of year to tell bear stories.  The bears are coming low, getting ready for winter.  I’ve heard a few stories in my valley from hunters.  Last week a ‘bad’ bear was dropped off just a bit north of the valley. Game and Fish spends a lot of their time moving bears [...]

Bear Search in the Centennials

Several weeks ago I joined a NRDC funded project in the Centennials under the leadership of Greg Treinish of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation looking for sign of Grizzly Bears there.  If we found sufficient evidence for the great bear, then more protections would be put in place. This was the 2nd of 3 ‘adventures’ Greg [...]

Grizzly videos from my driveway

A large (pregnant maybe?) grizzly has been visiting my chokecherry bushes nightly. Since I can’t post video, but I’ve got lots of 30 second clips from my trail camera, start here  at my Youtube site for a great shot of her shaking her butt on the way to the berry bush.  Then see my other [...]

More elk calves and a lesson in Life and Death

“…that feeling in your stomach of “I don’t want this to be happening.” You try to escape it in some way, but if somehow you could stay present and touch the rawness of the experience, you can really learn something.”  Pema Chodron Yesterday, this morning, and today were all one large event, the event that [...]

Grizzlies and elk calves

Its unusual to see  the Cody backcountry herd grazing every morning and night this time of year.  Usually, by now, they’re headed over the passes to calve in the Lamar. But the snows in the high country are still too deep and the melt hasn’t even begun. I’ve been watching this small herd from my [...]

Stories from the field

Since last September I’ve been having troubles with my Bushnell trail camera.   After one year, the infared pooped out.  So I sent it in under their 2 year warranty.  Finally after 6 weeks, they sent me a replacement.  But come to find out they’ve been having troubles with their 2010 models and my replacement [...]

Becoming Bear

This fall I followed bears around so much I began to feel that I was becoming sympathetic with ‘bear consciousness’. Its not that I was actually seeing lots of bears, although I did see a black bear as well as a Mama Grizzly (not Sarah Palin by the way) and her 3 cubs, but I [...]

Tell Bear stories

Its a perfect time to tell bear stories.  The bears have been foraging around, soon to bed down for the winter.  Last week a mama griz and her three cubs wandered through my adjacent forest.  Its been a bad year for bear food…lack of fattening pine nuts, the late cool spring, has made for poor [...]

Squirrels, Bears, and birds: What’s the connection?

The Clark’s Nutcrackers have been very busy over the last month.  So have the squirrels.  They’re both competing for the Limber Pine seeds that grow around here.  The birds extract and stash seeds.  The squirrels create middens with stored seeds and cones.  The bears let these animals do their work, then rob the middens. It [...]

The Bear Facts

When I took Jim Halfpenny’s tracking class last year, he gave me a small pamphlet entitled  Bear Ecology.  Yellowstone Ecosystem. The pamphlet consists of lots of charts, so I’ll try and digest a few for you, literally. Since I’ve been watching bear evidence and their scats a lot lately, here are a few facts:  About [...]