Watch a Yosemite rockfall!

In a follow-up of sorts to my last post, a visit to Yosemite resulted in me changing my college major to geology. Of course, after working in Yosemite for a few years, my interest in geology waned as my interest in bears grew. Yosemite can move your interests.

Anyway, for those who haven’t seen it, watch this nine-minute video about rockfalls in Yosemite (part of the Yosemite Nature Notes video podcast). It includes some amazing footage of the 2009 rockfall behind The Ahwahnee. (This footage is so fascinating, I’ve watched it probably a few dozen times—I guess my interest in geology hasn’t completely faded!)

If you liked that one, check out the other great episodes.

 

How a bear taught me that some people visit Yosemite and find something other than what they were looking for…

One night in 1999, after my partner and I chased a bear out Upper Pines Campground, we walked back through the campsite the bear had run through.

The person staying in that campsite had just arrived and was astounded by what he had just seen. In his state of near-ecstasy, he proclaimed us heroes, then went on refer to the bear as “a beautiful piece of machinery.” He was truly in awe. After he calmed down, he told us that he had just arrived (after dark) and, having been drawn to Yosemite by the likes of Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, was quite excited to see Yosemite Valley the next morning.

This man came to Yosemite in search of Half Dome and the waterfalls. Yet, I imagine that now, 11 years later, if you were to ask him what he remembers from his trip to Yosemite, it would not be Yosemite Falls or Half Dome—it would be the bear.

As the Yosemite Blog points out in point #6 of its tips on how to Make your Next Trip to Yosemite Better, those with an open mind can come to Yosemite and find something other than they what they were looking for. Has that been true for you?

 

A crazy night with bears

Many nights working with bears are uneventful (relatively speaking); other nights are crazy busy. Friday night was one such night.

We decided to start off our night by visiting the picnic areas to educate people about bears and make sure no bears were around. Before we even had a chance to head that way, there were two bear calls at the same time–one in Curry Village and the other in Upper Pines Campground. The wildlife techs responded to Curry Village while we went over to Upper Pines, where we found a bear vigorously scratching himself (or… something) at the edge of the campground. We chased him off, and since there were two campground rangers working in Upper Pines, we decided to try again to visit the picnic areas.

Alas, we were passing Camp 4 when there was a call for a bear at Housekeeping Camp. The wildlife techs were still busy with the Curry Village bear, so we turned around and met Ryan, the lead wildlife tech, there (he’d been working in the office). We found the bear walking on the bike path along the road by Housekeeping Camp. We followed him for a short while, then he crossed the street (the people in the car were probably confused why we had them stopped for a good 10 seconds, but their question was answered when the bear lumbered across the road in front of them). He swam across the river, headed toward the day use parking (aka Camp 6).

So, we all drove over there and eventually found him skirting the parking lot, but he then went behind a fence and was in an area away from the parking lot. We went to the other end of the fence (few hundred yards away) to see if he’d continued in the direction he’d been traveling, and to make sure he didn’t enter the parking lot. We stayed there a few minutes and decided we weren’t going to see him, so we walked back into the parking lot, only to have a visitor say something about a bear in a car.

I interpreted the visitor to mean a bear had been in a car–surely the bear we were following couldn’t be in a car already. I walked up to the car… to find the same bear we’d been following inside the car, focused on a box of granola cereal. Ryan came over with his shotgun and the bear exited the car, to be hit with three rubber slugs as he ran toward the fence–and vanished.

Now, this is a solid wood fence with vertical slats. I tried to chase the bear once Ryan was done shooting, assuming there was a missing slat I could squeeze through, but the bear seemingly ran through an invisible gap in the fence. I was bewildered. After a minute of searching, we found a very small space beneath the fence that he had squeezed through.

After taking the report, talking to the owners of the car after they returned, etc., we had some quiet time. Then, one of the campground rangers reported seeing a bear in Upper Pines again, so we headed there since we were close by. We drove around, checking for food storage and bears, and we saw people in a campsite looking at what we assumed (correctly) was a bear. We got out and headed toward the bear, catching sight of it. I stopped at the small creek (which is maybe six or eight feet wide and about a foot deep) because there wasn’t an obvious crossing right there, but my partner inexplicably kept going through the creek. (I remember thinking to myself, “She’s just going to go splashing through, eh?”) Well, she underestimated the creek and took probably only one or two steps before falling face-first into the creek. After checking to see if she was ok (she started to get up and head toward the bear), I crossed the creek and yelled at the bear once before breaking down in laughter, joined by my partner. It was quite funny. Oh, and there was a campsite full of visitors who saw the whole thing. (I’m glad it wasn’t me…)

Before leaving Upper Pines, we saw the bear twice more.

Back at the office, another of my coworkers reported she’d had trouble in a campsite, with a camper who had already had his food impounded, didn’t have his food stored when she was there, and (to top it off) had two makeshift squirrel traps. And he thought each of these things was humorous. Having never encountered this situation before, she didn’t think to call a protection ranger, but tried to educate him to put his food away and dismantle the squirrel traps. So, we drove back over there to see how his campsite looked now (a few hours later), only to find it looked pretty good. The campground ranger had just a few minutes prior noticed the squirrel traps in the campsite and had dismantled them himself. (Topic for the next bear team briefing: call a protection ranger when you find an animal trap in a campsite!) Based on the current situation, I didn’t think a protection ranger would be likely to issue a citation, but I passed the information on to one of them so she could check out the campsite the next night and try yet again to educate him (or cite him, if appropriate).

I spent the next few hours in Housekeeping Camp, which, aside from a few noisy sites and a naked guy at his food locker, was uneventful. (Housekeeping Camp has hired some “camp hosts” this summer to focus on food storage and they’ve made a big difference.)

Meanwhile, the wildlife techs had spent a lot of time in Curry Village with at least two bears in the area (I could hear the frustration in Ryan’s voice every time he was on the radio). It was almost the end of our shifts, but there was still a little bit of time, so I went over there to look around a bit. I found a bear running through Curry Orchard–but not the bear I expected–there was another bear around! Wildlife saw the bear leave the parking area, so, they headed back to the office while I checked out a car with food in it at the trailhead parking (a protection ranger was in the process of getting it towed). It turned out that the owners of the car came back to their car when they saw it getting towed–they were camping illegally just outside the parking lot! They had just come back from a backpacking trip and were, apparently, too tired to go stay in the nearby backpackers’ camp or remove food from their car (there are bearproof food lockers about 100 feet from where they were parked). They received a citation.

The other ranger and I were headed back to our offices when Ryan called back into service, saying that he’d just gotten a report of a bear eating out of a locker in North Pines. Since we were very close, we turned around and went over there. I got there first, and found that the bear had left a good 30 minutes prior (visitors were too scared to come out of their tent until then). I called Ryan so he could cancel his response, but as he was turning around, he found a bear on top of a car in Curry Village. Meanwhile, the North Pines bear had spent 20 minutes eating in their campsite  and seemed to sample everything in their locker–it just looked like a big pile of trash. (Please, scare bears out of your campsites when visiting Yosemite!)

And, that was the end of the night (for us, anyway–hopefully not much happened after we went home…).

 

A sneaky bear

Despite having many bear stories, I’m always at a loss to tell one when someone asks me for my best/favorite/coolest/most exciting bear story. The other day, I realized that one of the stories I don’t tell very often is one of my favorites (and involves one of my favorite bears).

One the night of July 4, 2007, I was using radio telemetry to try to catch up to a bear known as Orange 5. As I got closer, I finally caught a glimpse of her in the distance, in an Upper Pines campsite. There was a man in the campsite, standing not more than a few feet from his picnic table, with his back to the picnic table. He was doing something like washing dishes–I don’t remember exactly.

Yes, there was Orange 5 and a man in the same campsite together. Orange 5 put her paws up onto the picnic table bench and nosed around, looking completely at home, completely unconcerned–like she belonged there, like she was the man’s pet. Yet, she was a mere few feet from this man! I remember watching this several-second episode with some surprise. It was surreal. She was just so comfortable so close to this person!

Not finding anything to eat, she went to the next campsite and did the same thing, before I caught up to her and chased her away.

To this day, the man has no idea he had a 200-pound bear a few feet from him in his campsite!

That is how stealthy, quiet, and sneaky Yosemite’s black bears are.

 

Why did the coyote cross the road?

A week or so ago, one of the park’s wildlife biologists was driving out of Yosemite Valley when she saw a coyote standing in the middle of the road. This isn’t all that surprising: some coyotes know visitors will feed them if they beg by the road (these coyotes don’t realize they’re more likely to get killed by cars, too).

In any case, as she drove up toward the coyote, the coyote refused to move; this is unusual. Finally, she looked over and saw a bear hiding behind a boulder. Then, the coyote and bear sniffed each other. As she drove off, she looked in her rear-view mirror and saw them touching noses.

Bears and coyotes don’t typically tolerate each other much. I wonder why it was different this time.

 

What is it with teenagers these days??

Yesterday, I saw a sow with two yearlings who we’ve probably never seen before (and certainly haven’t captured before–they were untagged). While they may not realize it yet, the time these yearlings have with their mother is short, and they will find themselves on their own probably in about a month. This seemed like a close-knit family–the yearlings were staying very close to their mother. What will they think when she abandons them (so she can mate again)?

The same day, I read that an already-abandoned yearling in Great Smoky Mountains National Park bit a visitor who allowed the bear to approach him for a photograph. The visitor received a minor wound not requiring medical attention, a cool story, and probably some nice photographs. The 60-pound yearling received an early end to her life.

I’ve noticed over the years that yearlings–the teenagers of the bear world–behave rather similarly to teenagers of the human world: they think they’re invincible. I’ve noticed how they seem to have little fear of people and frequently approach people or allow people to approach them. Oddly, this is something they wouldn’t have tolerated while with their mother–and (if they make it past their yearling phase) is something they tolerate a lot less when they’re older.

So, the question is: how will these yearlings fare? It depends on us respecting these bears from a distance, lest they meet the fate of the Smokies yearling.

Sow and yearlings in Yosemite Valley

(You can read the Great Smoky Mountains story at the website of the Asheville Citizen-Times.)

 

And what will become of this bear?

I worked my first night shift last Friday. We saw a few different bears that night, including a bear that knows how to break into cars and houses and a young bear who appears to be completely unafraid of people (but who doesn’t… yet… know how to break into anything; I suspect she’s been fed).

But the first bear I saw that evening was in an open area in the west Valley, away from any development. The bear was grazing on grass and never noticed us looking at him from 100 yards away. He had no tags, no collar; we’d never seen him before.

It was a beautiful bear, and a truly wild one. Come fall, this bear will still be beautiful. But will he still be wild?

 

Chocolate footprints to begin the season

Yes, indeed, had you walked into the Yosemite Valley post office on Saturday morning, you would have found bear prints on the floor, caused (apparently) by the bear finding a not-empty cup of hot chocolate.

There have been various other sightings in the last few weeks in Yosemite Valley… at Curry Village, around a few different housing areas, and by Lower Yosemite Fall (where I recently had my first sighting of the year).  The Tuolumne Meadows winter rangers have seen two sets of bear tracks already.

Thus it begins!

 

If you’re a bear, it’s time for a nap

Imagine eating as much food as you could, then taking a nap. When you awoke, you’d realize weeks had gone by! What to do? Eat as much as you can and fall back to sleep! Repeat until it’s nice and warm outside. This is what many hibernating animals do, and they do it in order to conserve energy. (Many hibernating animals are small, so they lose body heat much more quickly than larger animals… I could explain, but it involves exponents…)

Bears aren’t typically considered small animals, yet the hibernate. Or do they? This seems to be an everlasting debate, but the current consensus (if there even is one) is that bears do hibernate–just differently from other hibernators. Black bears can maintain their body heat in winter if they choose, but they have a hard time finding enough food to stay alive in most places where they live. Hibernation is their solution to the food shortage. By hibernating, they can make it through the winter with just their fat.

When bears hibernate, their body temperature cools just a bit and their respiration and heart rate slow a little. They don’t eat or drink at all during hibernation (they even develop a fecal plug!) Since bears don’t cache food (like most other hibernators), they eat as much as possible before hibernation–a state called hyperphagia (literally, in Greek: over-eating). During hyperphagia, bears may eat 10,000 to 20,000 calories per day (compared to around 4,000 per day at other times).

So far this year, it seems like all the bears in Yosemite Valley are hibernating. There has been only one sighting this winter. This isn’t always true, and it’s not uncommon for a bear to be active the whole winter if enough food is available. Last winter, several bears remained active–perhaps because there was a bumper crop of live oak acorns that persisted even until spring.

I wonder sometimes… what would it be like to be able to hibernate?

 

Almost always: when scaring a bear doesn’t work

Some of you reading my last post surely picked up on the part where I said that yelling aggressively at a bear will cause it to leave “almost always.”

I’ve only not been able to scare a bear away once. There have been a few other times when I’ve had trouble scaring a bear away, but ultimately succeeded.

One late afternoon in 2000, I (with others) responded to a report of a bear near Upper Pines Campground. The bear, a large male I was quite familiar with at that point, hung out for a while near (but outside) the campground. So, we just kept an eye on him for a while. Eventually, the bear wandered some more and vanished. (Bears are surprisingly good at this.)

So, we all split up and went to various nearby places to see if we could find the bear again. I went to Lower Pines Campground and found the bear in the campground as he walked up to a locker and tried to open it, but it was latched, so he couldn’t. He went to the next locker, which wasn’t completely latched (see Smart Bear Tricks, part 3), and he opened it up and started dragging food out. When I tried to scare him away, he didn’t budge. When I tried harder, he got up from his meal and started walking toward me with what’s often called the “cowboy swagger.” At that point, early in my bear career, I hadn’t ever heard of this behavior, so I was unsure of what to do, other than back up. (We were within feet of each other.) While I had been bluff charged by this bear in previous encounter–to very close–this actually seemed scarier! So, he continued to eat, and I stood there helplessly watching… and waiting for the wildlife crew to show up.