Bear tracks

Help Support CattleToday:

Had to take down the bird feeder outside the living room window because the darn bears were tearing up the window screen getting to it.

Never had a bear bother the cows any tho.
 
One of the things I lost in my house fire in '84 was a picture from Afognak Island. That is the next island north of Kodiak. I had a picture with both of my feet (size 11) in a bear track. There are real bears on that island.
 
Wife saw a bear on a neighboring property the same night I saw the tracks in our field.
@greybeard the legend of that chupacabra critter ain't made it here yet as far as I know.
There's always been tales of boogermen, woodsboogers, apparently those are Appalachian versions of Sasquatch.
@Dave yeah, big difference between our black bears and the grizzly bears in the west and north. I don't want anything to do with a brown bear.
I've been close proximity to black bears several times and all but once they ran away pretty fast.
 
Ky hills said:
Wife saw a bear on a neighboring property the same night I saw the tracks in our field.
@greybeard the legend of that chupacabra critter ain't made it here yet as far as I know.
There's always been tales of boogermen, woodsboogers, apparently those are Appalachian versions of Sasquatch.
@Dave yeah, big difference between our black bears and the grizzly bears in the west and north. I don't want anything to do with a brown bear.
I've been close proximity to black bears several times and all but once they ran away pretty fast.
Click to expand...
I have been fishing in a stream with 5 black bears also fishing within 100-150 yards and not bothered a bit. Same area thrown rocks at a black bear to get him to get off the road so I could pass. I also got put up a tree by a brown bear. To say there is no comparison is a gross under statement. Working in Alaska for 6 years I was around a lot of bears. Only one of those years was in brown bear country. You went armed every where you went. Black bear country not so much. Years after I worked on Afognak I read about a guy I worked with there who got mauled pretty bad by a brown bear.
 
chevytaHOE5674 said:
Had to take down the bird feeder outside the living room window because the darn bears were tearing up the window screen getting to it.

Never had a bear bother the cows any tho.
Click to expand...
Your bears shouldn't ever be a problem to a cow. They could take advantage of one killed/dead or injured by some other means. Now the bears @Dave is talking about....
 
Dave said:
One of the things I lost in my house fire in '84 was a picture from Afognak Island. That is the next island north of Kodiak. I had a picture with both of my feet (size 11) in a bear track. There are real bears on that island.
Click to expand...
That mention takes me back to my honeymoon in May of '93. We were at the Denali Wilderness Lodge (outside of Denali NP, but just adjacent to it) everyone had individual cabins about the size of a bedroom. Around each cabin there were bear tracks better than a foot wide and 16-18 inches long. I was questioning if the cabins were substantial enough for us to not become a midnight snack. At the lodge, and I didn't know this was possible, there was a pair of moose skulls with antlers that were LOCKED in battle. The owner of the lodge, before he died in a plane crash (he was a bush pilot) found the skulls (and what was left of the wolf ravaged carcasses, which wasn't much, one spring and flew them back to the lodge. Do realize that the spread on each set here was - I'm guessing - 12-14 feet each. Everything is bigger in Alaska, including mosquitos (but don't believe the stories about them being the size of a dinner plate). Sorry Texas!
 
Mark Reynolds said:
Do realize that the spread on each set here was - I'm guessing - 12-14 feet each. Everything is bigger in Alaska, including mosquitos (but don't believe the stories about them being the size of a dinner plate). Sorry Texas!
Click to expand...
A moose with 72 inch (6 feet) spread is getting into the Boone and Crockett area. When you see the mosquitoes come in V formation and pick up a small child by the ears and pack him off, you know you are in Alaska.
 
Dave said:
I have been fishing in a stream with 5 black bears also fishing within 100-150 yards and not bothered a bit. Same area thrown rocks at a black bear to get him to get off the road so I could pass. I also got put up a tree by a brown bear. To say there is no comparison is a gross under statement. Working in Alaska for 6 years I was around a lot of bears. Only one of those years was in brown bear country. You went armed every where you went. Black bear country not so much. Years after I worked on Afognak I read about a guy I worked with there who got mauled pretty bad by a brown bear.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm glad we ain't in brown bear country. We can coexist with black bears fairly well without much concern.
I've been down in a hayfield where i had a garden plot. The perimeter of the field has grown up in trees and bushes along the fence pretty thick in the summer months. One evening I was spraying a pre-emergent herbicide over some beans and heard a commotion of branches breaking. Looked around and just a little ways in front if me a tall but not too big around tree was going back and forth for a bit. A bear must have been in the tree and i startled it or it ran up the tree when it saw me and fell out or branch broke with its weight.
Another time later that same summer and same field, i was picking beans on the outside row next to the grown up woods part and could hear the teeth clacking/jaw popping sounds whatever it is that they do. Then i could hear it moving through the underbrush. I couldn't see it but could hear it coming a few steps at a time towards me. I decided to hold my ground and go on picking beans, figuring it would stay a ways away from me, I was switching off sitting on the ground and being on my knees with my back turned while picking. I had stopped picking and just sat there still trying to hear it, hadn't heard for a bit. When it got about even with me I didnt know it was that close cause hadn't heard it moving for a while.
It let out a deep gutteral growling sound.
I just froze, didn't move for what seemed like a long time. Never did hear anymore out of it that night and went atraight to the truck after i got up.
There was an incident a few years ago in the Red River Gorge/Daniel Boone National Forest area about a half hour or so from us, where a hiker got attacked by a black bear. From what I understand the guy may have provoked the bear.
 
Travlr said:
We ate a black bear in northern California that had been killing cows in Siskiyou County. That was a long time ago, though.
Click to expand...
Rather unusual, but there are oddities out there. I go birdwatching with a group of regular birders (much more so than me) one of them told me about a robin that he saw in Alaska "tenderizing" a mouse by beating it on a rock before eating it. :oops: Yes, I said a robin. I can believe a black bear killing a cow, or even a cow killing a rabbit and eating it, before the robin eating the mouse, but this guy doesn't spin stories.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
Rather unusual, but there are oddities out there. I go birdwatching with a group of regular birders (much more so than me) one of them told me about a robin that he saw in Alaska "tenderizing" a mouse by beating it on a rock before eating it. :oops: Yes, I said a robin. I can believe a black bear killing a cow, or even a cow killing a rabbit and eating it, before the robin eating the mouse, but this guy doesn't spin stories.
Click to expand...
Robins beat up what they eat on the regular... Never seen it happen with a mouse, but they do it with insects and worms.
 
I have a good friend whose son is a hunting guide in Alaska. A moose with 60 inch spread is considered a real good trophy. That measured from the outside of one antler to the outside of the other.
 
Dave said:
I have a good friend whose son is a hunting guide in Alaska. A moose with 60 inch spread is considered a real good trophy. That measured from the outside of one antler to the outside of the other.
Click to expand...
Humm, well, that was over 30 years ago. Not that I meant it to, but my "moose" story might be a bit of a "fish" story. So I apologize if this is the case. (I still need to find the pictures). Having the two trophy skulls with antlers locked together in mortal combat I have no doubt is/did have an effect on my perception. Never-the-less, they were huge. I do apologize. Looking for the pictures today.
 

Similar threads

D
Neighborhood bear
2 3
Replies
54
Views
2K
MrChevy
M
D
Bear
2
Replies
20
Views
2K
Brute 23
Brute 23
K
Bear Season in Virginia
2
Replies
31
Views
2K
SmokinM
S
Silver
Fancy Bear
2
Replies
23
Views
2K
Dave
D
Ky hills
Bear tracks?
Replies
6
Views
2K
Dave
D

Latest posts

Top