BEAR ATTACK!!!

[NE PA QDM]

took the dogs out sunday to look for shed antlers. we got more than we bargained for.....

my black lab stumbled upon a sow who was in a nest sitting on a litter of cubs. she grabbed him by the neck and pinned him down. i'm not sure how long she had him in her jaws, it seemed like an eternity but was probably less than 20 seconds. without thinking (certainly, this is the dumbest thing i've done in years, maybe ever) i kicked her in the head until she let him go and ran away. it turns out that your brain does not work when your dog appears to be dying in front of you.

tragically, i don't think she has returned to the nest and the cubs have apparently died. my dog has a few extra holes in his head and neck but he appears to be doing OK, vet thinks he will be fine. PAGC is involved and told me not to beat myself up over the event, they said these things happen and sometimes sows get pushed off a nest, but i feel terrible about it.

the tree the bear made a nest under was a tree that i hinged a year or two ago to make improved deer bedding/cover. i didn't know that bears made nests out in the "open" (i.e., not in a cave or under a ledge etc) or that they had cubs this early in the year so i figured i'd pass along a word of caution to others. last weekend we shot a box of clays about 125 yards from this site and i've driven within 100 yards of it on my 4 wheeler hundreds of times in the last 6 months but never knew it was there.

fortunately, we survived this very scary experience but it's something i never want to go through again.

please be careful out there, you never know when you're gonna find something you weren't expecting.

 

[chickenlittle]

Yikes. Glad you and the dog are Ok.

 

[bueller]

Wow is all I can say. Glad you are both OK.

 

[Fall guy]

Glad you and dog ok.

On a side note: There's one thing all the experts never mention when telling folks make hinge cuts, thick nasty areas, with lots of over head cover. Makes prime habitat for other critters to include coyote and bear.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Crazy! Never figured a bear would den like that either.

 

[John-W-WI]

Glad everyone is ok.

It would bother me too, interrupting the bears life. But it was your dog or her cubs. I sure hope in the same situation I react the same way. My dogs are family, I might do some pretty foolish things to save them. And so did you.

Bears hibernating is very different than I once thought. They literally will spend the whole winter in a standing corn field given the chance. Sleeping most of the winter, but they get up and move around once in a while too. I used to think they went to sleep and didn't wake up for months. That's not the way it works around here anyway. A aerial photographer friend of mine as seen multiple bears in a corn field in the dead of winter. If he can see them from the air, they sure aren't in a "cave".

I would like to see a true bear "den" some day. Maybe tag along with the DNR on one of their projects?

-John

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Glad you and your dog are OK. Not a comfortable situation any way you look at it.

At my camp, I once was scouting some deer trails and sign late in archery season and came into a big patch of THICK hemlocks and rhododendron. I heard some brush moving and cracking ahead of me. I had pushed a bear out of one of those " nests ". It was the first one I had seen. I read about the nests, but never saw one before until that day. The one in your pic looks the same as the one I found.

For the numbers of bears out there, we'd have to have caves all over the place to den them all. I've seen them dig down into piles of leftover logs from logging operations, or under root masses where trees blew over for winter cover. Your pic is classic - thanks for sharing the story.

 

[wiscwhip]

Good to hear you and the dog are going to be ok. Sucks to lose the cubs I guess, but if your area is anything like WI, there are plenty left to fill the void.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

That's a crazy story. Glad you and the dogs are O.K. Too bad about the cubs. They were probably only days or weeks old.

In college we collared black bears in Western Mass and would go in and pull them out of their dens in the winter to collect data. Black bears are not true hibernators. They go into a deep sleep called "torpor" and do get up and move and feed throughout the winter. And yes, even a simple downed tree makes an adequate den.

 

[John-W-WI]

That's a crazy story. Glad you and the dogs are O.K. Too bad about the cubs. They were probably only days or weeks old.

In college we collared black bears in Western Mass and would go in and pull them out of their dens in the winter to collect data. Black bears are not true hibernators. They go into a deep sleep called "torpor" and do get up and move and feed throughout the winter. And yes, even a simple downed tree makes an adequate den.

That's exactly what I would like to do some time Natty - tag along with some wildlife guys when they tag/collar/collect data. Sounds like a neat experience.

-John

 

[kabic]

Good demonstration of why it may be a good idea of being armed when going into the woods. I don't normally do so, but probably should. I don't think my Father-In-Law goes to the farm without at least one handgun, but he is probably worried about more than bears.

 

[Bill]

Wow that's crazy. Glad your ok.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

That's exactly what I would like to do some time Natty - tag along with some wildlife guys when they tag/collar/collect data. Sounds like a neat experience.

-John

It was John. Going to college as a Wildlife Biology major wasn't really like going to college at all...we were always out in the woods measuring trees, climbing mountains, electro-shocking fish, dissecting all kinds of animals, trapping owls and songbirds, etc.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Are you still involved with biology Natty ?? If so, in what capacity ??

 

[kl9]

Glad you and the dog are alright. I would've done the same thing if it was my dog... Would've shot it had I had a gun.


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[NE PA QDM]

It was such a fast, crazy experience that I would not have been able to easily shoot the bear. It was perhaps the most helpless feeling of my life; I had a whistle and a cell phone, no gun. But when I got to the dog and bear, all I could see was a tangle of black fur and it took me a bit to figure out which part of the ball of chaos was my dog and which was the bear. Since my dog survived and is ok, I think I'm glad I didn't have a gun, I probably would have killed the bear unnecessarily. But, there's no question that I'll choose my dog over a bear if that's what it comes to.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

What part of NE PA are in? I'm in Sullivan County. I have seen more than my share of bear tracks/fresh sign at this time of year and later into the winter while shed hunting. Shedding the standing corn fields can get sketchy at times.

 

[bueller]

It was John. Going to college as a Wildlife Biology major wasn't really like going to college at all...we were always out in the woods measuring trees, climbing mountains, electro-shocking fish, dissecting all kinds of animals, trapping owls and songbirds, etc.

Had I known about a program like that I might have gone for a masters :D

 

[strawhead]

Interesting experience and story. Glad to hear you both doing ok.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Are you still involved with biology Natty ?? If so, in what capacity ??

I am...though not in Wildlife Bio. I teach high school biology. But I do bring my students out in the field often to do forestry studies, collect and analyze authentic data, trap small mammals to conduct population estimates, etc. I keep my hands dirty at a basic level.