Bears are classified with the caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. While bears are mostly carnivores, the polar bear is entirely carnivore, the panda lives on bamboo, the remainding bears are omnivorous with varied diets. Although all wind animals are unpredictable, bears are really smart, at least the ones that I've encountered.
Cheryl, one of my sisters, and I were backpacking with a large group out of Yosemite National Park, when a pile of trash was pointed out to us by the ranger that was walking with us. "That", he pointed to the pile, "are bear droppings." There was aluminum foil and other unidentified objects in the pile. Apparently bears will eat anything that smells good. Bears learn from their mothers and we were instructed to just surrender out backpacks if a bear came after it. No problem!
At our first stop for the night, we were instructed to hang all of our food, (including our tooth paste and gum) in the trees, ten feet from the trunk of the tree, ten feet off of the ground. Most of us hung our food bags on the tree limbs, but two of the hikers hung theirs over a chain that was strung between two trees, installed by the park service for hikers to hang their food. Because there was bear droppings sighted in the area, through the night we took turns watching for bears wanting to raid our camp.When they came near we made loud noises by clanging our pots and lids together to drive the bears away. At first it was funny, but it happened all night and it got old in the wee hours. Cheryl and I fell asleep eventually.
In the morning, all seemed well despite the long night. But we soon discovered that the two hikers that had hung their food bags over the chain got their food stolen by the bears. Apparently the mother bear had two cubs. She told her cubs to each climb up the trees that the chain was connected to. The mother bear stood under the bags and then she instructed her cubs to walk out onto the branches on each side of the chain to weigh the chain down low enough for the mother to grab the bags. This was a behavior that was passed on from one generation to the next. At some point a bear had figured out how that chain works, depress the limb that the chain is attached to and the bags that are attached to it would drop lower. Our bears grabbed the bags so fast that the two men who had their watch then could not stop them. We had to share out food with the unfortunate hikers.
Other people along the trail were pretty friendly too, sharing what they had with who every needed it.
Bears are not really mean, but they are wild and very smart!
No comments:
Post a Comment