Bear Tales

On Seeing, Smelling, and Touching a Wild Animal

Mama and cubs under our backyard pear tree pic by HGW

SIGHT

My first black bear sighting was on an autumn afternoon in the early 90s, just off state Route 28, near Phoenicia, NY, in the Catskills. I was driving alone. Luckily, no one was behind me as I decelerated, spellbound. Time stilled as the massive animal trotted away into the dense green. I’d never seen anything so portly and thick-limbed be so light on its feet (paws), seemingly gravity-defying.

My hands ached to touch that thick fur. What did it feel like?

I would find out.

Over the ensuing decades, I’ve seen many black bears in the Catskills. As when witnessing a bald eagle, a coyote, or any people-shy animal in the wild, especially a large one, I am reliably awestruck, completely in the moment.

Sight, however, isn’t as intimate, or deep, as scent. Only when a juvenile bear crawled into our car did I really get to know my ursine neighbors.

SCENT

At the turn of the millennium, my wife, toddler son, and I were Catskills weekenders. We lived mostly in Manhattan, retreating to a rustic cabin whenever our schedules allowed. One summer night circa 2000, our garbage – Huggies, food scraps, milk cartons, etc. – was stinking the place up. I carried the Hefty bag into the humid night and stashed it in our Subaru’s backseat floorboards. We would be driving back to NYC the following day, and, as usual, the bag would be left on the curb in front of our apartment for collection. Due to the fetid odor, I left the Outback windows down overnight.

I would make this mistake only once.

We awoke to find big muddy paw prints all over the car. It was easy to reconstruct the crime scene. The punctures and rips in the leather upholstery indicated the bear had climbed in through the back passenger-side window. The animal had pulled the garbage bag out and dragged it to the leaf rot beneath some birches. Bear had torn it open, and, evidently, had consumed the soiled diapers – a delicacy to ursus Americanus, I would learn. There wasn’t much to clean up from this thankfully al fresco meal.

Ah, but… the smell.

Upon sitting in the driver’s seat, my eyes watered. I flinched, as from a loud sound. The scent possessed texture, a sharp tang I could feel on my face – a potpourri of sweaty gym socks and skunk, with notes of feces. A bracing slap. In milliseconds, my lizard brain said, “You are not at the top of the food chain. Watch it.” In my mid-thirties then, I’d felt that distinctive, primal message only a handful of times.

Upon relocating to the Catskills full time in 2002, I would become much more acquainted with this humility-inducing demotion, a mixture of apprehension and wonder for which there is no single English word.

Later that day, as we headed back to “civilization,” we spied a yearling bear ambling along the rutted dirt road. Very likely our nocturnal vandal. Indeed, the adorable youngster appeared well fed. I hoped the Huggies wouldn’t induce illness. (I was assured they would not.)

Our experience would not be easily forgotten, mainly due to bear funk. It lingered in the car for months, an olfactory stain. Quite strange to drive the streets of Manhattan with bear musk lodged in one’s nostrils. A clarifying kind of aromatherapy, a reminder that amid concrete and diesel, something much older exists on the periphery of humankind’s footprint, waiting for the chance to assert itself some humid, fragrant morning.

Twenty-five or so years later, I can still conjure that scent, that message, in my mind.

TOUCH

In the mid ‘aughts, I experienced my closest black bear encounter yet, this time tactile. Driving one evening on route 28 past the closed Bread Alone bakery in Boiceville, NY, a thunderous boom came from the direction of the white Chevy van a few car-lengths in front of us. Sparks flew from the axles, the automobile veered across the double yellow – luckily no oncoming traffic – and onto the opposite shoulder, horn blaring. Beyond the shoulder lay the mighty, maple-encircled Ashokan Reservoir.

I pulled over and ran across 28 to the driver’s side window of the van. At first I thought I saw smoke inside the vehicle, but I soon learned it was propellant from the air bags. The grill and hood of the Chevy were crumpled.

The door opened, and a skinny woman of indeterminate age emerged from a chemical mist. Stepping to the pavement, she said, “I can’t believe it I can’t believe it I can’t believe it my second wreck in a month my husband is going to be so mad I just can’t believe it happened again I can’t believe it.”

I repeatedly asked if she was okay. She babbled on, seeming not to hear me.

“I gotta get that bear out of the road or someone else will hit it,” she said, and briskly strode through the dark about a hundred feet behind the van to a big mound in the middle of the road.

Turns out the boom had been the sound of her van colliding at 55 MPH with a full grown bear, which now lay dead in the middle of 28.

“Come help me get that thing out of the road,” the woman barked as she hustled along, beckoning with a wiry arm. “Come help me or someone else will hit it and wreck, come on. Come on.”

I followed. In the dim light lay the motionless bear, one of the biggest I’d ever seen, tongue drooping from its snout. Folks have asked, How did you know it was dead? Hard to say. Instinct. I just knew, as did the yammering woman in shock. She grabbed a front paw, rooted her sneakered feet on the pavement, and pulled. The bear budged a little. I grabbed the same paw, at last touching one of these creatures I’d watched from afar for years.

It was like warm steel wool. Not cuddly fur like a manicured dog, or a plush toy. No. A matted, coarse hide that had kept this animal warm, shielded it from rain, blanketed it through winters.

Grunting, we dragged the several-hundred-pound carcass to the shoulder. I looked up to see the night crew from Bread Alone approaching. Sirens in the distance. The woman thanked me, and finally assured me she was okay. The entire encounter had lasted about two minutes, I think. The car horn never stopped blaring.

I took one last look at the only bear I’ve seen killed in twenty-two years living here. The sadness for this beautiful beast would only come later, when my adrenaline waned, and my primal brain receded back to the shadows, leaving room for me to wonder, and thus, to mourn.

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Rather than end on that sad note, please enjoy some relatively recent backyard bear videos shot by my wife, Holly, from the French doors of our dining room.

This is the mama from the above pic, in the pear tree, munching and tossing fruit down to her cubs. Vid by HGW.

Some yearlings munching pears. Vid by HGW.

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While bears often roam our community, we don’t fear for our safety, mostly because we keep a respectful distance, and we never intentionally feed them. (A fed bear is a dead bear.) Also, unlike grizzlies and brown bears in the West, black bears rarely attack humans. (You’re more likely to get struck by lightning.) They may bluff charge – especially a mama with cubs – but in the decades we’ve lived among them, there’s been only one tragic, freakish incident in 2002.

When visitors ask if they should be afraid of our furred neighbors, I tell them no. Wary and respectful, yes. Afraid, no. The non-human animals you should be most cautious of are dastardly, disease-ridden TICKS.

I shan’t be documenting tick experiences. Unless there’s overwhelming demand. Feel free to weigh in.

Thanks for reading.