August 21, 2007

Two Bear Stories

I was catching up today with a colleague whom I have not seen all summer. It seems a black bear got into her house, which is up against the Wet Mountains, same as mine.

It climbed through a partially opened bedroom window, went into the kitchen, opened the freezer, hauled some items outdoors, came back in, found some dog food in the pantry, and took that out too.

She and her husband were away in Pueblo. First they got a call from someone who found their elderly dog, nearly a mile from home. Terrified, the dog had run and run. Then they came home ...

"I felt violated," she said, the same language you often hear from burglary victims.

It could happen to us, I know, even with two big noisy dogs. Once I did surprise a black bear in the garage--it had gone through the connecting door into the basement and found our bulk food storage. Paw prints in spilled powdered milk showed just where it had trod. That bear took off when it saw me.

Not like this story, which at least has a happy outcome. And they will always have his scars in common.

UPDATE: It could be worse. We could be living in New Jersey, where there is nowhere to relocate bears and the cultural-political climate is more hysterical. "Dolphins of the wilderness"??? (Dolphins are predators too.)

1 comment:

Michelle said...

hrm...as a child we had frequent bear visitations in our home above Breckenridge.

As a 10 year old living in a house with one glass wall...bears would come and lay against the glass. They wouldn't stay for long but I remember having to get my bother and sister up stairs and then get the dog in the house. During the day there were no adults around and we lived up baldy mt...so we were surrounded by empty tourist houses.

A large brown bear butt against a window is a lot scarier than it sounds. lol.