Humans and bears - Wild encounters

[brotherbear]

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock.

I shook the snow off the tent flap and peered out. A four-inch blanket of snow covered everything. The morning was gray but at least I was not in a cloud. I could get some spectacular movie footage today. Moving off the edge of the knoll, I glassed the basin below. The big brown grizzly dug at his den again. The day before, winter seemed a long way off. Obviously the brown grizzly knew something I didn't.

The Black Grizzly worried me. He was the one animal up here who regarded me as a subordinate. All the other grizzlies treated me much as they did other, more dominant bears and ran away most of the time. A few, including the den-digging griz, showed neither fear nor aggression and stood their ground. The Black Grizzly, on the other hand, charged and ran off other bears. He hadn't charged me because I hadn't given him a chance. The big brown griz and the Black Grizzly seemed to be the two top animals in this group of thirty or so bears, and they had a pact. I'd seen them feed within 150 yards of each other as peacefully as cattle, though the brown bear deferred slightly to the Black Grizzly in leaving him the prime berry areas.

Happy Bear romped and waddled back into the trees. Likewise, the den-digging grizzly disappeared. The temperature had risen and the snow was rapidly melting, so they were probably bedded for the day. I spent midafternoon walking the ridge looking for bears, but did not find any. My original plan was to use up all of mt movie film, which could take four or five days, but with the Black Grizzly on the scene, the situation was more tense. Since he drove most of the other bears out of the other bears out of the mountains, there would not be many left to film. On the other hand this animal holds endless fascination for me: he is my Moby ---- of grizzly bears. Reply