They told me I had not just one bear out here, but several. The game and fish guys were letting their dogs loose every morning and ran them down to the canyon and the river behind my place (both some 2000 feet lower than my home on top of the ridge). Eight days in a row he tore down the wall, and eight days in a row I built it back. He did not just break in, he tore the whole wall down before going in to have his fill of my birds. The bear came out of dormancy the first week of April and immediately began to hit my chicken houses. I had 75 laying hens with a couple of roosters and 25 X-rock meat chickens for butcher. They ran dogs and were trying to capture and collar cougars with transmitters to follow lion travel and behavior.

At the time, Game and Fish were doing a survey on mountain lions in my area. The bear marauding my chicken houses was not a Grizzly, but a big black bear-a cinnamon phase boar that was +/- 300 pounds. Grizzly bear scat has the same but with little silver bells and empty cans of pepper spray.” One of the wardens was asked by a tourist, “Can you tell the difference between black bear scat and that of a Grizzly?” “Oh, that’s easy,” he replied, “Black bear scat has ruminates of nuts, berries, and some roots. The game and fish wardens were unloading and setting a bear trap behind my house and told me a story: a tourist in Montana sold little silver bells and cans of pepper spray to ward off bears while hiking in the woods.

Claws by Ricky Sides