Animal adventures Part I...

Bear Scat found at the entrance to the bear den. It was all over!  And the picture below is a look into the bears bedding area. The animal on the right is not the bear. It is my dog Boone.                

I went out today for a hike with my two dogs and my brother Bob's dog. I took them out to my family's ranch near Kelly, WY. This ranch is new to our family as my parents just purchased it in August so a large amount of exploring still needs to be done there. I thought today would be a good day to do some of that exploring. It turned out to be more of a nature hike than I had expected. Normally when I hike in Wyoming, I bring a can of bear spray with me. It is basically a giant can of pepper spray that can shoot out 30ft in front of you. This is an effective bear deterrent because if a bear were to charge, you would spray the stream in their direction (hopefully not on a windy day)and it would scare the bear away (hopefully). This is a much better way to scare a bear away then say a gun, however, I normally carry a .44 mag hand gun with me in heavily timbered areas in case the bear spray fails. But to be honest with you, I probably would have not brought my gun with me today if it hadn't been for my boyfriend Alan telling me to. He had been fishing down there a couple weeks prior and saw bear scat so he thought it might be best to double up today on protection. However, I managed to forgot my bear spray...and of course it would be on a day that I run into a bear. I would NEVER want to harm an animal like a bear (and I am sure that those of you that have read my elk article are thinking, "Yea right"). But I really do mean it. There is something majestic, adventurous and exciting about bears and they are creatures that demand respect. They are amazing animals and ones that I don't particularly care to eat (which was the only reason for the elk hunt).

The dogs and myself began walking along the river for about 15 minutes when we came across a family of deer. The dogs of course spooked the deer and they ran off. After walking for another ten minutes, I looked over to my right and saw what looked like a large grouping of short tree's or willows and right in the center there was a hole in the trees and a trail going right to the hole. This caught my attention because I knew it was created by some sort of animal. My first thought was, "This must be where the family of deers had been bedding down," so I pursued the trail and its curious hole. When I got to the entrance I slowed my walk and looked around the inside. It was just a network of trees but it was clearly a den area for some sort of animal because there were beds (areas where the grass or ground has been flattened by an animal spending time laying on it). And then I saw a pile of what was clearly bear scat at my feet. And then I noticed that bear scat was littering the whole floor of the clearing. I got a picture and decided it would be best to leave when I heard a grunting about 75 feet on the other end of the den area. I knew exactly what sound that was and began to call the dogs while my hand reached on my hip for my gun. I frantically looked for each of the dogs and saw my dog Boone (black lab mix) and my brother Bob's dog Malary (alaskan malamute) come to meet me at my side. Then I saw my dog Teyah (alaskan malamute) and directly across from her was a black bear. I sternly yelled for her to come right as the black bear charged at her. Right as the bear moved, Teyah bolted toward myself and the other dogs and ran towards the opening of the network of tree's. At this point I had the pistol in my hand while backing out of the opening with the dogs by my side. Once I was far enough away and I knew the bear just wanted us out of it's home and didn't want anything to do with us, I smiled and laughed a little. I realized that it is moments like these that remind me why I love this place (Wyoming) so much. There is nothing like running into a bear to make you feel alive. It is exciting to know that we have one sharing our ranch with us. I never felt too scared of the bear since it was just a black bear (not that they couldn't attack a human but it isn't very likely). He wasn't too large either and if you look closely at the picture I posted, you can see that this bear has had plenty of berries to eat.

I thought my animal adventures for the day were over but not quite...