Bear-bluffing

Bear-bluffing

A friend, who lives 1000 feet higher than I do, wrote recently and said that four different bears have been causing some havoc—one young bear in particular.  My friend has surface water and no dogs, just the opposite of the squatting pot farmers around him, so he gets the bears. And the one young bear actually broke into his cabin, tearing off screens, pushing windows, even after being chased off several times. It all makes for a long sleepless night. My friend thinks the bear grew up motherless, hence its delinquent behavior. Many bears will go after your trash and garbage, but most draw the line at actual human dwellings. As they should.

There was a bear in the Trinities when I had a mining claim up there that would break into cabins—go right through the walls—but only unoccupied cabins. That was a particularly large and strong bear—all the prospectors knew him. He broke into a pickup truck that had a hundred pound sack of wheat in the cab and bent the emergency brake right around the steering wheel.

We’ve got a bear too—not a HUGE problem so far, but he has made a complete mess of the trash cans twice in two years now. That’s tolerable. And I’ve learned to understand when my cat tells me he’s around. It’s not so much she tells me, but that her eyes get big and she climbs up to a shelf I built for her at the highest point in the cabin and stays there. But now I know what it means, and so last time I was able to ambush the bear at the trash cans.

My strategy has always been to attack. It’s a bluff, but as long as the bear doesn’t know that it’s a bluff you are okay. I run right at the bear, usually screaming a rebel yell. The whole point is to convince the bear that if I catch him I will jump onto his back and most definitely bite into his ear and rip it off, and then lick its delicious blood at my leisure. It’s method acting—you have to believe it yourself or you won’t fool the bear. So you have to move fast and decisively.

Unless the bear gets the drop on you–that is, makes his move first. In that case you have to play defense. I once had an eyeball to eyeball that went on for many minutes, each of us making feints and circling like boxers in a ring. I won the stare-down, eventually, but only after five very tense minutes and because the bear finally decided that I must be insane, and therefore under supernatural protection. I think my eyebrows helped.

Rocks are better against bears than guns, in my experience, and definitely better than any silly banging on pots and pans. Sizable rocks, I mean. Nasty tennis ball-sized rocks, maybe with an edge or two on them. Chip a tooth on that bear and he won’t forget you–bears have a racial memory of our Neanderthal brethren of the past. All cave-men were good with rocks. Think about it—“Stone Age” and all that.

Sometimes sotto voce works better than a loud yell. I used it on a very aggressive raccoon once. I was visiting a friend in Bellingham, Washington, and left his house very late at night and in a highly altered state of consciousness.  I think he had mentioned something, some time during the evening, about this raccoon, but I hadn’t paid it much attention. Anyway I was wandering along a path that led back to the guest cottage. There was a hedge along one side of the path and at an opening I saw that this big raccoon was walking along parallel to me, on the other side of the hedge. We did glance at each other and I just assumed that he’d take off, but he didn’t. At the next opening there he was.

I just kept walking. Mostly, at that point, I was absorbed in the question of coupling constants–that is, the degree of interaction between one dimension of reality and another, and how I fit into that. But more and more the raccoon became a presence. Could the raccoon sense my thoughts? Did it know?

Then the hedge ended and the two paths came together and we both stopped. I couldn’t believe it. Why wasn’t the raccoon running away? Maybe I was the one who was supposed to take a step back. I was thinking about that when, again, just as with the bears, some ancient memory saved me. One of my very distant ancestors had already worked this one out. “Yes, my grandfather, your grandfather, they discussed this matter at length, and I get to cross the bridge first,” like General Forrest said to General Cheatham at the Duck River. So there we were, looking at each other and sizing each other up, and I said, just above a whisper, “Do you really want to mess with me?” Except I didn’t say “mess,” I used a word that begins with “f.” And the raccoon almost fell over himself running away.

These tactics sometimes work on muggers and other thugs. I’ve heard stories. Unless your assailant has a gun. Then you have to make certain adjustments.