2 Backpacks, 2 Bikes, a Van and a plan..: The Bear Charades Continue....

Well, just when we thought things were starting to quiet down with the bear activity up here at the basin, we had another circus-like day with the young mother bear and her two small cubs who keep running up trees, falling out of trees, etc. This time we not only got photos, but a video as well, as the activity took place right in front of the visitor center where the bears decided to dine on a Yucca tree late in the day.

The fun started when we got into the visitor center early Monday morning and were told that the sow with the two cubs had been hanging around the visitor center parking lot, rooting through trees and plants earlier in the morning (presumably in search of food). Apparently the cubs were also running around up on the roof of the lodge just across the parking lot before one of the Law Enforcement Rangers was called to chase them off.

Well they returned late in the afternoon and were once again climbing and clawing at the Yucca tree in the landscaped area in the center of the parking lot between the visitor center and the Chisos lodge, while an assortment of hotel guests, hikers and park visitors looked on and snapped photos. We quickly went out, along with a park ranger and the same law enforcement ranger who had chased the bears off earlier, to once again chase the bears out of the parking lot and into their natural habitat, the hills and woods surrounding the area. The goal, of course, is to get them away from people and back into the surrounding hills without injury to either the bears or any of the visitors who tend to forget that these animals are actually wild as they get closer and closer to snap photos.

The usual protocol is that one person is assigned to keep all of the people away from the bears, one person blocks off the entrances to the road to avoid the bears getting hit, and the others make alot of noise to try to run the bears off. If necessary, the ranger can use a shotgun that shoots bean bag bullets to "encourage" them to move off.

Well after a few minutes of yelling loudly at the bears, the mother finally ran off with the cubs, or so she thought. When she looked back, only one cub had followed. The other had, of course, ran up the tree instead! After a minute or two the mother and the one cub came back to retrieve the errant cub, who had to be convinced to come along and eventually they all ran off together. I was inside the visitor center while all this was going on and managed to capture a good part of the action on my cell phone. I posted the video to YouTube and have attached a link. When you watch it, note that as the three are all finally running off together, the young cub again hesitates at a different tree along the way as if he might run up that one as well!

Here are the photos and the video. You may be surprised at how small the mother bear and the cubs are. Although she is small, the sow is actually a full grown bear and the cubs are a few months old; they would have come out of the den in early March. The rangers here have noted that the cubs (and the sow as well) are not growing well due to the drought that has effected the food sources available to them in the park. That is likely the reason they are searching for food closer to inhabited areas.