Tag: black bear

Watch: Bear joins startled hunters in tree stand

Video footage has surfaced showing a large bear cub joining two startled bow hunters in their tree stand.

Video footage has surfaced showing a large bear cub joining two startled bow hunters in their tree stand.

The footage, posted below, also shows the hunters trying to remain calm out of fear of startling the bear, which at times was only inches away.

Wes Marchak told For The Win Outdoors that he and his brother were hunting bears from the stand last May in the Canadian province of Manitoba when another cub chased its sibling up the tree.

The footage, uploaded to YouTube by Viral Hog on Monday, shows Marchak giggling as the cub was just opposite his brother farther up the tree. “It was my brother’s first time hunting,” Marchak said, declining to provide his brother’s name.

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The young bear, once it realized it was not alone, quickly returned to the forest floor.

Marchak explained that momma bear had long since left the cubs, which were about 4 years old, to fend for themselves. The hunters did not harm the cubs.

Marchak, however, said he had been hunting “a certain bear with great size and lots of meat to fill my freezer,” and harvested that bruin a few days later.

–Image courtesy of Wes Marchak

Serial poacher appears on the loose in Oregon

Oregon wildlife officials appear to be hunting a serial poacher, and are using a K9 officer named Buck to sniff out clues.

Oregon wildlife officials appear to be hunting a serial poacher, and are using a K9 officer named Buck to sniff out clues.

The crimes are being committed in Lane County, and poaching victims include a black bear that had been decapitated, and several elk and deer that were left to waste.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Josh Wolcott, a Senior Trooper with Oregon State Police, stated in a news release issued Friday. “Things are happening all over Lane County right now. Every day is a new report.”

Wolcott and Buck, a yellow lab and the state’s only K9 officer, have been traveling to poaching sites where the dog can sniff evidence such as shell casings and gunpowder, and detect human scent.

Credit: ©Pete Thomas

But State Police and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are seeking public information that might reveal a suspect’s name or vehicle description.

The black bear carcass, discovered on private property outside Veneta, was missing its head, claws, and portions of meat. It might also have been missing its gall bladder.

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(Poachers sometimes kill bears for their gall bladders, which bring a high black-market price in Asian markets, where they’re sold for medicinal purposes.)

A partial list of animals that were poached was provided by the ODFW:

  • A black bear discovered on Roseburg Forest Products property outside of Veneta. The bear was likely poached about Oct 13. The head, claws, portions of backstrap meat and portions of leg meat were removed. The remainder of the bear was left to waste.
  • A doe deer discovered on National Forest Property near Fall Creek. The deer was likely poached on or about Oct 14. No meat was taken; the doe was left to waste.
  • A doe deer discovered along US Forest Service Road 2118 near Hills Creek Reservoir. The deer was likely poached on Oct 14 or 15. No meat was taken; the doe was left to waste.
  • A buck deer discovered on private property near Lowell. The deer was likely poached during the night of Oct 15 or early morning hours of Oct 16.  No meat was taken; the buck was left to waste.
  • A spike buck deer discovered near High Pass Road. The buck was likely poached on or about Oct 16. The buck was field-dressed and left to waste.
  • A doe discovered in the Veneta area. It was likely poached on or about Oct 18.

Many of the carcasses were discovered after calls to the state’s Turn in Poachers (TIP) line, and it remains unclear whether the list has grown during the investigation.  But authorities are exasperated and hopeful for leads.

Said ODFW Wildlife Division Administrator Doug Cottam:

“There are available and inexpensive opportunities to legally harvest a deer or bear to eat in Oregon.  There is no excuse for poaching. I am very concerned about people who kill wild animals just to satisfy their desire to kill something.”

–Black bear and elk images are generic

Watch: Bear gets touchy-feely with shocked jogger

A woman jogger froze when a black bear emerged on the trail in front of her in British Columbia. Video shows the bear tapping her knee.

A woman jogger descending on a trail in British Columbia suddenly froze when a black bear emerged from the bushes in front of her.

Sam Abdullah, who was ascending the popular Coquitlam Crunch trail below her, started videotaping when he saw what was happening. The Sun posted the video on YouTube.

“I think she was in shock and she just froze there,” Abdullah told CBC News of the encounter last weekend.

“If you see the video, we are doing the opposite [of what] we are supposed to do. We are coming closer to the bear. I was trying to distract the bear by yelling because we are not running away, because there was a girl there and we waited there until we knew that she was safe.”

The black bear casually walked up to the stunned runner and tapped her on the knee and then stood back.

jogger encounters bear

The bear approached her again, but she managed to slip by the bear and started running down the trail. Fortunately, the bear did not give chase.

The woman ran past Abdullah. He attempted to catch up with her to see if she was OK, Abdullah said, but “she kept on running all the way down.”

Conservation officer Murray Smith told CBC News that he couldn’t blame the woman reacting as she did but advises people who encounter a bear to back away slowly, make yourself big by putting your arms over your head and talk to the animal, telling it calmly that you’re a human.

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“Once you back away and get out of the situation, then you can hurry away a little quicker,” he said.

Smith also said it worries him that the bear actually touched the jogger.

“It appears the bear had little or no fear of the runner,” he told CBC News. “It wasn’t like the bear was startled by the runner and reached out and contacted them. In this case, the runner stopped, and the bear approached the runner and then the bear hit the person’s leg, so it’s very concerning.”

Wildlife officials were going to attempt to trap the bear, and it’s possible it would be euthanized if caught, but they are seeking more information first.

Photo courtesy of Sam Abdullah.

Tense moments for family as bear removes window screen

A black bear provided scary moments for a family in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., recently when it removed a window screen and considered breaking in for several seconds despite the family’s loud pleas.

A black bear provided scary moments for a family in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., recently when it removed a window screen and considered breaking in despite the family’s pleas.

“We got a visit from one of our neighbors, apparently he is not fond of our front door and doesn’t know what ‘shoo’ means,” Christian Pondella joked on Instagram.

As viewers can see, the light-colored black bear deftly removes the screen and sniffs the air for several seconds as Pondella and his wife and son try shooing the bruin. At one point the bear seems on the verge of climbing through the window.

Pondella, an adventure photographer, told For The Win Outdoors that the bear “eventually left” during the encounter last week, and it has not returned. “No damage except the screen,” Pondella said.

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Black bears are abundant in the forest around Mammoth Lakes, and commonly sighted by residents.

–Image courtesy of Christian Pondella