One of the nicest things about living in the country is that, occasionally, wildlife — of the larger variety — will sometimes pass within sight of our home.
Over the years, we have observed wild turkeys, whitetail deer, foxes and lesser animals as they strolled, alert but unalarmed, across the property.
One afternoon, late in April, I glanced out the living room window, facing south, hoping to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of a tom turkey. I was in the habit, as is the case this time of the year, to periodically send out a series of yelps to attract a nearby bird.
As I glanced beyond the lawn, to several large maple and oak trees, I caught movement. A large, black object then paused, with only a part of its rear end showing.
My wife, Kathleen, was reading at the time and I turned to her and said, with great excitement, “I see a bear!”
She jumped up, went to the window — but saw nothing. The animal, paused behind a thick maple, was motionless. Then it abruptly turned, casually heading for the front of our home. I rushed for my camera and by the time I was ready, the bear was walking slowly, right in front of a stone wall, not 15 feet from our front windows.
It is difficult to describe what was going through my mind at the time, as I struggled both to catch this black beauty through the lens of the camera, yet wanting to soak up the scene with my eyes only.
Up to that day, after 34 years in Vermont, I had never laid eyes on a black bear. That is somewhat of a surprise since I have spent long days hunting deer in the wild stretches of northern Maine, in the Adirondack Mountains and in some very deep woods of the Northeast Kingdom.
Oh, I have seen plenty of signs of black bears’ presence. Just two years ago, while turkey hunting in the big hills of Pawlet, I came upon some huge piles of bear scat.
And then there was the time we went on a three-day canoe trip on Long Lake in the Adirondacks. As Kathleen and I camped on the lake, along with my brother Tom and his wife Carol, we found piles of bear scat everywhere.
We camped at a site with a lean-to and previous campers clearly taught the local bear population that where humans tread there is also food to be had. The women wondered about the large piles of scat. “Could this be bear poop?” they asked, with fear in their voices. Trying to calm them, Tom explained that, no, it was the product of large raccoons.
Just last October, I set out for the muzzle-loading deer season in New York. Upon my return, I found my bird feeder, which is supported by a thick metal rod, bent 90 degrees to the ground. I studied the scene in disbelief. Over a span of perhaps 20 years I had fed birds and never encountered anything larger than a gray squirrel feeding around the birdfeeder. Stupidly, I bent the rod back into its former shape, drove it back into the ground and refilled the feeder. A week later, the rod was again forced to the ground. My bear had returned.
Since that time, I have taken the feeder down on April 1, as recommended by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.
But back to the bear.
As I was clicking away, what do you know? The bear, which had good size, some 150 pounds by my unprofessional estimate, strolled up a little rise in the lawn, right to where the bird feeder once stood. Then he stopped, looked around a bit, appearing somewhat perplexed, and walked around my pickup truck and then to the woodshed, where two garbage cans are kept. By sheer luck, I had made a dump run hours earlier and the bear, now nearly hidden by the woodshed, may have been smart enough to shake those empty cans, finding them empty.
Then, he turned north and, now in full view, made his way up the ridge, above my property. Then, just like that, he blended into the forest and was gone. In all, we may have had the joy of observing this usually reclusive omnivore for perhaps four or five minutes.
That day, a Saturday late in April, will, of course, be cemented in my memory, for it fulfilled a longtime dream of mine — to observe a black bear, close up.
But there could be trouble for this bear. The next day, my wife learned that our next-door neighbor had a black bear — almost certainly the same animal — on their deck that same afternoon.
This could be a bear that has learned to move from one residence to another, looking for its next meal. That means it is almost certainly a “problem bear,” one that has lost its fear of the human scent in favor of a sure meal. If that is the case, it might only be a matter of time before the bruin is shot, either by a nervous homeowner or a game warden.
I hope not, for the bear’s sake and for mine.
