Not Used To This...

[Al Agnew]

I walked down to the Yellowstone River off our yard here in Montana the other day. I built a series of steps down the steep 12 foot bank to the water's edge, and trimmed back the grass at the base of the steps last year, so it's easy to get down to the water. I was surprised to find a rotten deer carcass at the base of the steps. Hmm. It had been dead quite a while, so how did it suddenly end up there? It looked like it had been in the water for a while and something had dragged it out. I debated pushing it back into the river but I knew it would just get hung up in a brush jam a few yards downstream, so I left it, intending to do something about it a little later. And then I forgot about it and didn't think of it for a couple of days. When I remembered, Mary and I walked down to see if it was still there. It was, but there really wasn't much left of it. Coyotes? Dogs? Just a bunch of crows, ravens, magpies, and the occasional eagle? We decided to leave it, and go buy a game cam to check to see what got it. But we didn't do it that day, and the next day we walked over to the bank again to see what was left...and there, at the top of the bank, were two big piles of bear scat.

We immediately went into town to buy the game cam, but by the time we came back home it was too dark to set it up. And that night Mary read in the local paper that three bears which had been seen several times recently on the east side of Livingston had been trapped and relocated. Since our house is a mile out of town on the east side of Livingston, we figured those were probably the same bears. But last night we set up the game cam anyway, even though there was little left of the carcass but skin, bones, and stench.

We have several crabapple trees that the former owners of the place planted, and one of them produces exceptionally nice crabapples, sweet enough to actually eat if you don't mind really tart things. We pick them and make crabapple liqueur which is excellent. The tree is about ten feet high and ten feet across, in the corner of a fenced in area, and we further enclosed it with fencing since the beavers around here are thick and like to chew down trees in the winter. We'd already picked all the crabapples we needed for liqueur, but there was still a bunch of them on the tree in the upper branches. This morning, we had to drive into town, and as we passed that tree we noticed ALL the crabapples were gone, and several larger limbs had been broken down. Now there was no doubt...a bear was still around. When I got back from town I immediately got the memory card out of the game cam. Here's just one of the couple dozen pictures it took last night around 3:20 AM:

Understand, this spot is about 50 feet from the sliding door into our bedroom, and up until last night it had been warm enough that we'd kept the glass door open partway, with only the screen door closed. It's just a little creepy to think that a bear had been that close to us for several nights running. I'm also curious as to where this bear beds during the day. There are a couple of very small groves of cottonwoods on either side of our yard, and other than that, some brush on the island in front of the house and a large expanse of bottomland timber across the river.

We think we had a bear in the yard once before, three years ago. There was a hornet's nest in a low bush at the edge of the yard, that we noticed just before we left on a trip, and I planned to get rid of it when we returned. But when we got back, it was gone, except for some scraps scattered around the yard, and there was the imprint of what was probably a wide bear butt in the grass underneath the bush where it had been. But now we know for sure that there's a bear around. It's really cool, but it reinforces the fact that you should never leave food out to attract a bear, even as close to town as we are! And even if we observe that scrupulously, there are still those crabapple trees...

[mic]

WOW.... I'm curious to see if it comes back. I would think not, probably the smell of the deer brought it in to the yard.

[Al Agnew]

It was back last night at around 4 AM, but only stayed for a minute...nothing left of the deer to eat.

[Phil Lilley]

Had a bear come up on my porch at Naknek one night - found footprints on the deck. Hear him- felt the cabin rock. The doors on those cabins are hollow core... wouldn't take much if he wanted in.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The doors on those cabins are hollow core... wouldn't take much if he wanted in.

They wouldn't be hollow for long if it were me. Especially up there.

[Jeff Tief]

Sounds like a job for the old brother-in-law Dennis to handle.

[jdmidwest]

I was thinking otters were eating the deer till I saw the pic.

I wonder why a bear would bother a hornets nest? Nothing but stings for a few larva. They go after bee hives because of the sweet rewards of honey. Birds on the other hand will tear a hornets nest to pieces for the larva.