365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Naches Loop Bear
Day 319: It's not just me. All across the Park, we're seeing more bears this year, although Paradise seems to be recording them in near-record numbers. This marks my third encounter for the summer, and definitely a more healthy specimen than the scrawny wretch I saw two weeks ago on the Lakes Trail. A party of half a dozen hikers had stopped at a respectable distance and alerted me to the bear's presence with loud voices (but not shouting). "There's a bear on your left! About fifty feet down!" At that moment, my view was blocked by trees, so I continued down the trail until I could spot the animal. Yep, there was a bear, contentedly munching what few blueberries it could find, doing bearish things and posing no particular threat to the humans in its territory. "Oh, hi, bear," I said (my customary reaction when I need to let a bear know it's sharing the trail with a human). Bear looked up briefly and then went right back to pulling blueberries off the bushes, but the hikers were somewhat agitated. "We wanted to wait until you got by it!" I hung around until the bear had moved out of sight and was no longer at risk of causing a less-experienced hiker to panic, not so much worried about the hikers it might encounter as I was about the poor bear who was just trying to have a decent meal without disturbance. Remember: you're in their world out there, so mind your manners and let them go about their business without interruption.
Labels:
black bear,
critters,
MORA,
Naches Peak Loop Trail,
Ursus americanus
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