Bear-rogant Bob

Last night, while drifting off to sleep, I heard a “sliding” noise… like a window being opened. I lay perfectly still trying to hear other noises from a possible intruder over the sound of my pounding heart. Just when I was ready to dismiss it as my imagination, we hear a BANG! Both of us spring up from bed and ran to a window.

Then I see him.

Bob. The biggest black bear you’ve ever seen, has just smashed right through our fence, and is sauntering down our driveway. How arrogant can he be? He’s as big as a car, and is easily 8 feet tall if he stood on his back legs. According to Wikipedia (the source of all things true), “despite their heavy build and awkward gait, [bears] can run quickly and are adept climbers”, so CLIMB OVER THE FENCE YOU LAZY BEAST!!

In the midst of our adrenaline rush, I managed to get a few photos of Bob.

 

 

Bob has quite the reputation in our neighbourhood. When the moms at school say, “Bob came to visit last night”, we all know we’re talking about a bear and not gossiping about a midnight affair. You see, MOST of us have had encounters with him.

He’s broken our fence three times now. He’s broken my parents’ fence I don’t know HOW many times. He’s left claw marks in their trees. Teeth-marks in their garbage bin. He’s knocked over COUNTLESS garbage, recycling and green waste containers around the neighbourhood. (Maybe if people got the mandatory locks for their garbage bins there wouldn’t be a problem, but hey, that’s just my uneducated opinion). Our garbage is locked and in the garage, so he went after our recycling. Maybe the toy fish on the Duplo box in the bin made him salivate?

Bob freaked the living snot out of me last year (although technically, it was Colin’s fault). We were watching TV and heard a noise. We went to the door to see if anything was amiss. Before I could see out the door, Colin SLAMMED it, shouted “GET UPSTAIRS!!!!!!!”, and proceeded to run up himself instead of helping his terrified wife (who thought there was a crazed gunman at the door) clamber clumsily up the stairs, receiving several bruises on her legs in the process.

It wasn’t a gunman, of course. It was Bob. Riiiight outside the front door. We went out on the deck to see Bob sauntering away from our broken fence. It was the first time we actually saw Bob. He was walking the same route he walked last night, and went across the street to the same house he went to after ours last night. 

Well, Bob. 2 years in a row you didn’t get SQUAT from us (except maybe some slivers), so get the hint and STOP COMING!

Then there was that time this exact week in September last year when a different, MUCH smaller bear got stuck in our yard. I got home from work to a house decorated with police tape. That’s a sign that your evening is about to get interesting…

The police showed up after a few minutes to tell me that there’s a bear trapped in my yard. He’d eaten all the plums off the neighbours tree, which makes them get woozy. So he came into our yard and passed out like a drunken college boy after leaving 13 extra-large piles of crap all over the yard. A lot of fruit will do that to ya.

The conservation officer and police have their shotguns and tranquilizer guns out. We were new to the neighbourhood at the time and the neighbours were really nervous when the police tape went up. “What kind of gangster young family moved in here?” they thought. So I invited the curious ones over to watch the show from my porch. Really was a good icebreaker.

The police and conservation officer decided that it was better to tranquilize the bear after they gave it a chance to run away on its own:

-          in a family neighbourhood

-          at 4:30 in the afternoon when the kids are home

-          on a hot sunny day

Makes PERFECT sense, right? So, they scared it, got it all mad and aggressive, and chased it up a tree. NOW it’s time to shoot the sleepy juice. So that it will fall 30 feet when the meds kick in. SMRAT.

Even though I was glad the bear was being transported back to the mountain, hearing that “THUD” when it fell wasn’t a particularly happy sound.

I am SO TIRED of having these visitations. I have 2 young kids. We can’t even let them play outside by themselves. I’m more scared sleeping in our trailer when it’s in our YARD than when it’s in a CAMPSITE for crying out loud.

I know there are readers out there saying, “It’s not their fault, you are living in their territory”. Yah, yah, I get it. Other people (ie. not us) are destroying forests and building houses on their ex-territory. But for Pete’s sake, our house has been there for 35 years. Time to buzz off and find a new home in the wilderness.