Nature Canada

Just Waitin’ For The Bears

Maggie Romuld, Environmental Consultant

Maggie Romuld, Environmental Consultant

This is a guest blog written by Maggie Romuld, one of our newest Women for Nature members. Maggie is an environmental communications consultant who also writes freelance nature and science articles to make science understandable to all. Her goal to ensure meaningful conversations about issues that affect us is completely in line with the aims and intents of Women for Nature.

 

This is a text conversation I had late last summer:

Me: I JUST FOUND OUT THAT I CAN EXPECT BEARS IN MY NEW BACKYARD!

BFF: But Maggie, bears are part of nature, you loooove nature.

Me: Not BEARS! Bears don’t count! I love CUTE nature! And they keep changing the rules, you’re not supposed to climb a tree anymore, and I don’t know whether to play dead or not…

BFF: Call a Conservation Officer.

Really? That’s it? No sympathy whatsoever? I was serious! Well, I don’t necessarily just love cute nature – that was a bit of an exaggeration, but bears are definitely on my TTAAACWO (things to avoid at all costs while outside) list. And apparently I was going to have a front row seat…

Flash forward:

It’s late summer again and I’ve started to hyperventilate a tiny bit whenever I look at the apple trees over the fence. The apples are ripe! Noooo, that means the bears will be back soon!

To be fair, my new friends were fairly well-behaved last year, and aside from gargantuan piles of bear poop left 20 feet from my back door, and a suspiciously poor strawberry harvest, they didn’t bother us much. (Well, ok, there was the time they broke the patio table and ripped a bird feeder off the house, and one of them did leave paw prints on my office window while he was trying to eat out of another feeder – but that was my husband’s fault for thinking it was late enough in the year to put the winter bird feeders back up). Generally though, on a typical September day, “Big Pooper” just plodded through the yard along a well-worn path between the apple trees and his favourite spot to tuck in for an afternoon nap – just over the rise where the grass meets the forest. Occasionally, if he was still feeling a little peckish, he would stop to mow the clover on the far side of the pond. I’m not sure if “Strawberry Thief” was a female or a young male (small and light, it ambled more than plodded) but it too had a daily routine, one that included a strawberry patch recon, a surprisingly nimble scramble over a rotten old fence, and a snooze in the shade under the willows.

Big Pooper at Parson Pond

Big “Pooper” at Parson Pond

I don’t know why I’m so nervous around bears. I’m a biologist for God’s sake, a naturalist – I’ve worked outside for most of my adult life, and been camping, fishing, and hiking since I was a kid. My sciencey brain isn’t winning this battle, though. Even though I’ve read how truly rare bear attacks are, and I know the odds of having trouble with one are pretty slim, January, February and March are the only months I don’t cast a wary eye around the yard before I venture out. It probably doesn’t help that I know my particular bears aren’t even slightly intimidated by me. Last year they were still a novelty, so even though I was afraid, I was also secretly excited to see them. If I was outside when they showed up I quickly headed inside so I could watch them (that sentence makes it sound so benign but it was actually more of a panicked back pedalling while suppressing the urge to run and scream). When I took their pictures from the safety of my living room I twisted the door knob ever-so-gently and opened it barely wide enough to stick a lens out. No matter how silent I was, the big one would hear the latch click and would look up, but then he would carry on about his business.

Strawberry Thief at Parson Pond

Strawberry Thief at Parson Pond

I just paced out the distance to the general location of Big Pooper’s path from my door and it is 45 medium-sized-lady paces (science in action!), so bears have pretty good hearing. That’s a good thing because this year I intend to make a lot of noise. The bears are welcome in my yard when I’m inside, hell, they can invite their friends. I just don’t want to turn around when I’m in the garden and find one close enough to lick the back of my neck. And bears or no bears, I am determined to pick strawberries and read by the pond whenever I feel like it this year. Perhaps I can borrow a lesson from the urban planners who discovered that certain types of music keep crowds from congregating. I still have lots of my old 80s aerobics music – that should work!

P.S. In case you were wondering, scorpions, Portuguese Man O’War, and rattlesnakes are also on my TTAAACWO list

But who doesn’t love a cute chipmunk!?

Chipmunk at Parson Pond

Chipmunk at Parson Pond

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