Bear? Where?
by Charles Angell
E
arly
morning
on
Thanksgiving Day last
year I met my group, a
family of four, for a guided hike
in Big Bend National Park. It
was a perfect day for outdoor
activities: cool air, few clouds,
light breeze, sunrise painting
the sky and mountains pink.
We were hiking into one of the
many outer rim canyons in the
Chisos Mountains.
We began noticing many
large piles of bright-orange scat
on the trail, and, when asked
what creature produced it, I
could only assume bear. Soon
we noticed multiple trees at
trailside with claw marks and
gashes in the trunks and broken
limbs littering the ground
around the oaks and madrones.
These are unmistakable bear
signs, yet each time I comment-
ed on the presence of bear in
the area the group insisted I
was joking. Winding higher up
the path, I spotted a tall slender
tree just off-trail rocking side to
side. I was certain it couldn’t be
from the wind – no other trees
were swaying. Sure enough, at
the base of the tree was a black
bear, probably 200 pounds. It
slowly plodded in our direction
with what looked like an open-
mouthed grin on its face. We
stood frozen; it seemed not to
realize we were there. And
when it got within 10 feet of us
I stomped my foot and shouted
“Shoo!” It abruptly stopped,
looked at us, snorted and then
disinterestedly turned around
and shuffled away through the
leaves.
This clearly was the high-
light of the trip for my group.
Quick photos were taken and
conversation for the next hour
centered on all matters ursine.
After reaching our hiking desti-
nation, we took a short snack
break and began our return to
24
Photo by by Bradford Barron
Among the branches of a madrone high in the Chisos, a Texas black bear forages for berries, oblivious to
its human observers.
the trailhead. Upon reaching
our previous encounter loca-
tion, we were treated to anoth-
er performance – this time with
the bear high up in a madrone
tree, climbing limb to limb and
stripping off berry-laden
branches to eat. We watched as
it gracefully climbed around,
sometimes deliberately grasp-
ing the limbs and other times
sliding its feet along, in a fash-
ion almost human-like.
Being able to observe this
feeding behavior for such an
extended period of time was
fascinating. I had been
unaware how dexterous the
forepaws of bears were; it
reminded me of a monkey or
an ape. Rheinhold Messner, a
world-class mountain climber,
wrote a book on searching for
the Abominable Snowman, or
yeti. His theory was that people
would confuse the rarely seen
Himalayan bear with a
humanoid; after witnessing this
limber display, I would agree
with him.
Black bears were once abun-
dant across the state of Texas,
but as the settler and livestock
populations increased the ani-
mals were extirpated through
hunting, trapping and loss of
food sources. Bear meat was a
tasty meal, their skins prized for
clothing and the grease ren-
dered from their fat highly val-
ued for cooking, lubricating
and lamp fuel. The Native
Americans utilized them for
similar purposes – and would
oftentimes use the grease as a
bonding agent for the pigments
used in their pictographs.
I have seen some Indian
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2012
rock art in this region of
quadruped creatures that could
be interpreted as bears, and
their one-time prevalence in
the Trans-Pecos is evidenced by
place-names such as Oso
Mountain and Oso Spring –
oso being Spanish for bear. The
last of the bears in Trans-Pecos
Texas disappeared sometime in
the early 1900s, but the found-
ing of the state and national
parks here and the granting of
protected status to bears have
helped increase their numbers,
as the animals have slowly
migrated back from Mexico
into the Big Bend. The Big
Bend now has the only con-
firmed breeding population in
Texas.
Last summer I watched a
huge bear, easily 400 pounds,
lumber across the paved road
leading to the Basin in the
national park. I’m fairly certain
of his weight, because he was
every bit as large as the taxider-
mied bear in the Museum of
the Big Bend, which was
recorded at 412 pounds. This
big fella had a ragged pelt that
appeared to be mange, but I
later theorized it to be burnt fur
patches from the fires in
Mexico it was escaping. I later
learned that bears regularly go
through molts that can account
for hair loss and discoloration
and can also take on this
appearance due to nutrition
and health.
We continued watching and
filming our furry friend, but the
day was growing long, so we
decided to leave it alone with its
meal of berries and acorns.
Before we left, it dismounted
the tree and stood upright on
two legs, leaning back and
bouncing up and down with its
back against the tree-trunk; its
slack-jawed facial expression
left no doubt it had found the
itch that needed scratching.
There have been no known
bear attacks in the history of
Big Bend National Park, but it
was curious to see this one had
no fear of us. It seemed indif-
ferent. I wondered if this was
because it had grown up in the
park and become accustomed
to human presence, so I con-
tacted park wildlife biologist
Raymond Skiles for some
information. He explained to
me that some of the bears born
and raised away from the
park’s high-human-use areas
can be averse to human pres-
ence. He also mentioned that
with the withering drought
man and beast have been
enduring, the bear might have
been more focused on feeding
at an opportune time, giving
eating priority over any fear of