After the last nine days of the fox story that ended badly I want to tell you about a family of black bears. I promise this story has a happy ending.
This last Friday evening we drove up towards Tower to look for the female black bear with 3 new cubs. She is the grand daughter of a black bear named Rosie, so named because she hung around the Roosevelt Lodge area a lot. This bear also hangs around the Roosevelt area and is named Rosie as well. She is a great mom. If you watched her for a while you might think she is aimlessly wandering around eating grass. And she is, but she knows where her cubs are all of the time and fiercely protects them from intruders, especially male black bears who she has chased away on a number of occasions. As we were driving towards Tower we found the photographers staked out waiting for Rosie an her 3 cubs at Rainy Lake. Some of them had been there all day. We decided to wait. I hung around with the photographers and my husband stayed in the truck parked in a pullout towards Roosevelt Lodge. After waiting about an hour or less he radioed me that Rosie and family were just east of the Roosevelt corals. Suddenly there was a mass migration of photographers to the west. We got to a small valley east of Roosevelt to find Rosie grazing as usual and the cubs playing.
But then we noticed there only appeared to be two cubs. The smallest one was missing! Just as we noticed the cubs absence Rosie bluff charged the photographers. She was heading straight towards me with a look in her eyes I have never seen before, and hope I don’t see again. She was mad! We all scattered like quail. This was unusual behavior for her. She had always accepted people as part of her environment and they have never appeared to bother her. Just after her bluff charge a friend of mine noticed the third cub on the other side of the road! Evidently the family had crossed the road before we got there but the runt got left behind. It was up on a hill calling its heart out. That is why Rosie had bluff charged us, she heard her baby and we were in between her and her baby. Several of us moved up the hill to try to stop traffic both ways so the cub could cross. One woman ignored my friend’s request to not go any further towards the cub, who was by that time coming down the hill towards Mom, and in her quest to get a photo scared the cub back up the hill. We were really upset. We just knew that cub would be too scared to get across the road. But the cub was smarter than we were. It ran along the top of the hill to where it was parallel with Mom. Meanwhile Mom bluff charged the photographers that were way too close again. Before we knew it the cub ran across the road and kept running right past Mom. Rosie followed her cub and suddenly all 4 of them were reunited.
She sat down to nurse them which is always a good way to calm everyone down. After they finished nursing she led them up the hill and out of sight. A happy ending to a scary situation for the bears and for us. I hugged my friend for valiantly trying to stop the crowd and we all went home for the night.
P.S. I want to make sure everyone understands that the vast majority of people there were trying to do the right thing, but it only takes one person to mess things up. And in this case, when the life of a very young black bear was in danger, that is one person too many.
I’m so glad the cubs are all okay. It’s really sad that some people don’t seem to have any good old common sense and then some just don’t think the rules apply to them.
Your story was full of suspense and I was very fearful for the little cub. Thank goodness it all worked out. Thank you for reporting this, and I hope those who need to will learn how to behave.
So glad that this one had a happy ending! The story of the photographers and 610 in the Tetons did not end well for her cub.
Last summer I foolishly got inside scarface’s comfort zone and he bluff charged me. I thought I was doomed. I will now keep far away from bears and use a little more zoom on my lens.