Sunday, October 3, 2010

Animal Tracking: Black Bear Scat

One scoop of peach bear poop please! In a cup not a cone. ;)
Here is a blop of scat nobody coulda' missed while walking down the remote gravel road... it almost looked like one of those rubber joke poops, but upon a closer look I could see it had fruit skins in it (and not the usual joke corn).
Also it was very, very fresh and only the baking sun had darkened the very thin exterior.
The longer I sat there examining it, the more evidence that appeared - not just in the poop but on the wind. I smelled something strong and skunky... I tended to think it was a skunk, until my donkey's behavior began to change to something nervous and agressive, something frightened.
I broke the scat open to see it just fell apart, fresh, warm, and strong smelling. FULL of fruit...
10 feet away from the scat was a tall peach tree with tons of little half rotted peaches on the ground.
If I was a bear in the Fall season, I would stand guard near the last peaches of the year too. JuJu the donkey let me know under no uncertain terms that there was a bear in the area by looking up into the forested area over and over, alert, freaked out, and tried forcing me to run away with her by jumping, running back and forth, making huge eyes. When she realized i was not going to run she gave up on my stupid human self and she took off running alone! I found out where she was when i got a call from a neighbor that she was grazing their lawn.
Are humans less aware then they used to be... or are we that arrogent that we don't fear wild animals anymore, even unarmed? Why don't our instincts force us running, but instead thinking?
Xoxoxox

4 comments:

  1. I love bears(cute:) but will never go near one!

    x

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  2. Maybe our histories have taught our instincts that running isn't our best option. I had a similar thing happen in the mountains here, walking by a shrub patch near a river I got the smell for a second, moved away but looking back a minute later sure enough there was a bear on the other side.

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  3. Our evolutionary path chose forebrain development over enhanced sensory perception.

    You might want to consider picking up some bear spray, because if you stumble upon a 400 pound bear and it decides it wants to eat you, there will be no way the superior forebrain of a hundred pound cajun pixie will talk the bear out of it, and JuJu has shown that she's going to take flight.

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  4. Hey Cosmic :)
    I am a sucker for all animals, but i have never seen a bear in person. I dont wanna get near it, but would not mind seeing it in passing.

    Jason -
    You are probably right, i suppose we learned early on running faster then some of the animals was not really an option.
    Really cool that you were aware enough to smell it and move along.

    Lou Cheese!
    My ever cautious friend :)))
    If i lived in the west i would be pretty scared of the bears since they do eat people. I am lucky that i picked to live in a region where attacks are extremely uncommon, the most recent ones all being in the confines of the city (they attacked people's goats) and also in a park where people gathered to picnic ect....
    in general the bears here are scared of people, and dont have a record of eating them. I think though where i live now has more bear then anywhere else i have been in Western North Carolina. Or that I have noticed.
    I have a hunch the "bear spray" is some toxic shit that will make me sicker then the bear. Do you know?

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