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Hope You See A Bear

By Karin L. Becker

Found in: | Outside | Wildlife |

Three summers ago my boyfriend, now husband, and I had the privilege of visiting Yellowstone the day the northeast entrance opened. Eagerly, we paid our entrance fees and drove into the park. Snow was piled waist high in some areas and only one campground was open. We stopped at the camp store to fill up on water and buy a few supplies. The cashier, an old-timer wearing a flannel shirt under his suspenders, called to us in a mischievous voice as we were exiting, "Hope you see a bear."

David and I laughed about it and made it the catch-phrase of our trip. Because of the vast amounts of snow in May, a lot of animals normally attuned to the high country were coming down to lower elevations to seek food. We saw a gray wolf cross the road right in front of our car, stopping to look at us and pose for a photo. We saw countless buffalo that David feared would gore me in my over-confidence of approaching too close. We saw innumerable deer and an epic scene of two coyotes chasing a herd of elk across a river valley. But we never saw a bear.

At home in Durango, the only times I've seen black bears have been in neighborhood alleys and backyards, rummaging through trash and knocking over garbage cans. One time we were lucky enough to spot a bear while driving west along Highway 160. I've seen signs of bears along trails - fresh claw marks dug in Aspen trunks and sizable scat of plant leaves, partly digested berries, seeds or animal hair on the trails - and once I discovered a bear cub licking the insides of aluminum cans at a neighboring campsite in Saguache. The little bear's nose was immersed in the can, and he looked like a modern-day Winnie-the-Pooh and his jar of Hunny.

Yet, I've never seen a bear in the San Juan National Forest. It is probably a blessing that I have not encountered one. With my overly trusting nature, I'd probably be too busy photographing it to realize any danger.

Despite my fascination with bears, I rarely spy one. Black bears are very solitary animals and travel alone except in mating season in the summer. In November, black bears fatten up on any food they can get. Although bears are omnivores, they could pass for vegetarians. They eat mainly twigs, buds, leaves, nuts and roots. When they can get them, they eat deer, elk, birds and eggs before entering their dens to hibernate until March. Favored places are under a fallen tree, a cutbank or other hollow.

During winter months, while I'm out hiking, I look for possible bear dens, imagining how warm and cozy they must be. I think about how detached these animals are from the winter world, from the snow falls and warm thaws, the way the sun illuminates individual snow crystals, from the frozen waterfalls and the whoomps of avalanches, yet I'm also reminded of how detached I am from their cycle of life.

When bears are hibernating and their heartbeat drops to conserve energy, there is still a lot of activity going on in their dens. Unannounced to the world, new life is being born. Bears are one of the few species, along with weasels and seals, that can actually be half-pregnant. After mating with a boar in the summer, (and copulation can sometimes last up to an hour), the fertilized egg develops into a small embryo, but interestingly enough, the fertilized egg suddenly stops growing and floats freely in her uterus for several months, until it becomes implanted in November. Bears are one of the few species that can actually say they are kind of pregnant.

In contrast to humans, where a mother may be in labor for grueling hours to birth one baby, mother bears briefly wake up from their slumber in January or February to give birth to two or three nine-ounce blind and hairless cubs about the size of a chipmunks. Then it's off to sleep again for several more months. Feasting those months on their mother's milk, rich in calories and fat, the cubs rapidly grow and weigh up to six or nine pounds. By the time the mother wakes up for good in the spring, her playful cubs are ready to follow her out of the den. If the mother bear didn't fatten up enough before hibernation, the embryo may not develop.

For their first winter, the cubs den with their mother and then venture into the wild world independently thereafter. Cubs will start breeding during their fourth summer, but they won't reach full size until their fifth birthday. Females breed every other year, and black bears may enjoy 20 years or more of good living in the wild. They have few enemies besides humans and mountain lions.

Although seeing a black bear in the wild would be a highlight for me, to the bear, I would be an invader of its solitude. My desire for wanting to see a bear stems from the fact that I've only seen bears outside of their natural habitat, in the human domain. To see a bear in the wild would authenticate the notion that we live in bear country and enhance my appreciation of our proximity to wilderness and wildlife. But knowing how much humans threaten bears through feeding, loss of habitat, hunting, illegal killing, and destruction of bears that pose a threat to humans or livestock, I hope I don't see a bear. I hope that they remain elusive and sheltered from human encounters.

Karin L. Becker is a freelance writer and photographer in Durango and teaches writing at Fort Lewis College. When she is not hiking or mountain climbing, she is trying to finish her first creative non-fiction book.