As a kid, I used to hike all over the Santa Monica mountain range without ever thinking about the wildlife I might run into. When Dave and I started going out, I was introduced to all the potential dangers I had never thought of as he regaled me with hunting stories from his years in the backcountry. Needless to say, the first time we went on a pack trip, I was POSITIVE a bear would come crashing into camp at some point during the night, and didn’t sleep a wink the entire time we were there. Between his experiences and every “media-tized” story that had ever been done on bear attacks, I was a pathetic hostage to my over-active imagination.
It took me a while to realize that I had been duped. By the media, that is, not my husband. As a marine biologist, I have learned enough about sharks to recognize the ridiculous misperceptions that plague these beautiful creatures due to movies like Jaws and the media feeding frenzies that follow the rare attack. Without that same experience in land-based ecosystems, I had unwittingly allowed myself to be sucked into the hype and misinformation about bears.
That was quickly remedied. Within a few weeks of our first date, I had already seen my first bear tracks, and soon Dave was taking me “bear hunting.” Not carrying guns and knives like he used to do with clients, but instead armed with cameras and binoculars, and occasionally a cocktail. Several evenings a month, we take off in the Jeep around sunset and find a place to set up and just watch the world go by. It has become one of my favorite activities with him – talking and laughing about whatever, shrugging off the dramas of the day, and enjoying the beauty of wherever we are. Mostly we see beautiful sunsets, and maybe quail. Sometimes a bobcat or coyote. And every one in a while, an actual bear.
I have seen a mama and her two cubs come down to a creek to catch trout, and then watch her hustle them quickly away when a big male came to poach their fishing hole. I have seen a bear napping in an avocado-induced stupor in the middle of an orchard. I have spooked a bear off the trail while mule-back in the Sierras, and have woken up to one stealing dog food from Blue’s dish. And every time has been awe-inspiring and oh-so-cool! Nothing like “When Bears Attack,” or whatever those ridiculous shows are called.
So by the time the bear moved into the well house, I was well over my fear, and felt like I understood them much better. While we had to evict it from the actual building, we saw it again a few times nearby, and I was really excited to think we might have a resident bear on the property.
We had to work at the well site a few days later, and as we came down the hill on the quad, there was a doe feeding in the same area that the bear had been hanging out. Dave made a comment about how there was no way the bear was around now, so after we finished the work, we decided to walk a little ways down the game trail to see if we could find signs of how recently it had come through. Heads down, looking for tracks and scrapes, we walked towards the edge of the thick brush. I don’t know why I looked up, but when I did, not ten feet away was the bear, circling under an oak tree.
If I may digress for just a moment to tell a joke you have probably heard before: Two guys are walking in the woods when a bear starts chasing them. The first guy begins to run as the second exclaims, “You can’t outrun a bear!” The first guy replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you.”
I was the first one back to the quad.
