I didn’t wake up before my alarm like I had the previous few mornings. I had been getting up earlier than usual to check the traps, and my body seemed to have adapted to this new routine in the last two days. But this morning the alarm caught me off guard. The weather had been changing – from an early, sunny heat on Saturday to a slow-to-burn-off blanket of clouds on Monday – and today there was a low ceiling of grey over the trailer when my alarm went off, hiding the sun that should have been up. Groggily, I inspected the thick smoke of clouds through the skylight window of the bathroom. It didn’t look like rain necessarily, but it was humid and cool and seemed like it would stay that way for most of the morning. It would have been a good morning to capture an animal.
When I arrived at the rendezvous site, the shepherd boss and the trapper were already there. I could never beat the shepherd boss to the rendezvous site, even when I arrived early to scan for collared predators and howl-call wolves, but I had at least been the second one there each day until now. Before I got out of the truck to nod and raise my coffee in a gesture of good morning, I reached down to turn on my radio receiver. Then I remembered that there was no reason to scan for any frequencies today; if there was a bear in the trap, we were all pretty sure who it was, and he wasn’t wearing a radio collar. When the second trapper arrived, we started up the winding logging road to the ridge where the traps were set.
* * * * * * *
Four days earlier, we had ascended the hill together for the first time. The shepherd boss led us. He had already been up that morning to inspect the damage and speak with the shepherd who discovered the carcasses. The trapper, a representative from an agency that manages wildlife conflicts, came to investigate and determine what actions should be taken. I was there to collect data. The second trapper, a younger man about my age, did not join us that first morning.
The first dead sheep we found had been an adult ewe. It had been disemboweled and only very partially fed upon, although its udder had been completely consumed. The trapper explained to me that this was very common, as the udder is the most nutritious part of the animal and generally the first part consumed. I was reminded of a story a friend had told me about grizzly bears in Alaska killing dozens of salmon at a time but only consuming their eggs – the most nutritious part of the fish – and leaving the emptied but otherwise intact bodies of the large fish discarded on the shore for all manner of scavengers. Scavengers that would benefit from the boon of calories and nutrients carried up stream by the fish and exhumed by the bear.
The primary goal for each of us – the shepherd boss, the trapper, and I – was to determine what had caused the death of the sheep. Simply finding the partially consumed ewe however, provided no evidence of what had killed it. Indeed, the cause of the ewe’s death could not even have been classified as predation upon initial inspection. It was still possible, although unlikely considering the circumstances, that the ewe had dropped dead from disease, or poisoning, or god knows what, and only later been consumed by some opportunistic scavenger that happened upon the chance feast.
Determining the cause of an animal’s death, if its death has not been witnessed, is something of a morbid art that wildlife biologists, crime scene investigators and autopsy pathologists practice in common. I had performed many field necropsies on wild animals, but this trapper was a master. Thus, the trapper skinned and examined the ewe. I asked questions and took notes.
There were multiple large hemorrhages beneath the wool on the ewe’s haunches and back. This kind of extensive internal damage, with little or no sign of damage on the animal’s exterior, is indicative of blunt trauma. The kind of blunt trauma one might incur if hit by a baseball bat or a car. In addition to the hemorrhages, multiple punctures to the throat were discovered – about the diameter of a pencil. The spacing between the teeth that had made the punctures, as well as the diameter of the punctures themselves, indicated a large predator – probably too big to be a wolf or anything smaller. Further, the pattern of the attack did not at all resemble that of a mountain lion, which are surgical, fastidious killers. This ewe had been pulverized and consumed in a much more ungracious way. We were dealing with a bear. A history of grizzly bear attacks on sheep in this area and at this time of year, as well as the sheer number of sheep killed, implicated a grizzly bear. Although the partial hind track we found near the ewe’s carcass was fairly small to have been left by a grizzly.
* * * * * * *
Yesterday morning, we checked the traps for the third time. We had come up the hill each morning to look for a grizzly bear connected to a tree by one of the snares we had set; a tree we all hoped was large enough to withstand the thrashing of a very enormous, very pissed-off animal.
In anticipation of the force of nature we had expected to find each morning, fettered to a tree by a cable thinner than my bicycle lock, we had assembled something like a posse: two trappers, two bear biologists, a rancher, a shepherd boss, and myself. The trappers, the biologists and the rancher all carried shotguns, some of them with sidearms and bear spray as well. No one carried anything besides weapons, except for me. I carried a yellow backpack full of field equipment and supplies. Instead of a shotgun, I had an antenna over my shoulder. We might have been mistaken for a deputized militia tracking a horse thief, except of course for me, with a backpack, a tracking antennae and a smile of excitement I was trying to conceal. There was no mistaking the graduate student.
When we checked the traps we discovered that, after two days of unsuccessful trapping without so much as a claw scratch in the dirt, one of the snares had been set-off. It had failed to ensnare its target, but the animal that had triggered it had taken one of the, now unrecognizable carcasses from the bait pile and dragged it a couple yards away. Near the mess that was the dragged carcass, a small, triangle-shaped print was found. It matched the track found the first day. Excited that something – likely the something – had finally taken the bait, I went immediately for my camera. I knew that whatever animal had thwarted the trap, pulled away the melting carcass, and left that identical footprint, would have at least been “caught” by my remote camera. The pictures I found indicated that between about 11:15 and 3:45 the previous night a small black bear – perhaps 200 pounds at most – had flattened a path through the wall of deadfall and chaparral that we had erected around the bait pile, and raided the makeshift larder.
It came as something of a surprise that this small, juvenile bear was the animal that we had been looking for. At least, I was surprised that the relatively small predator could do so much damage. But the tracks matched, and this was the only animal that had returned to feed on the carcasses.
The older trapper reset the snare that had been tripped and the young trapper placed two coil-spring leg hold traps. The coil-spring traps would have been inappropriate for a grizzly bear, or perhaps even a larger black bear, but considering the size of the bear in the photo and the size of its track, the coil-spring traps – the same that would have been used for a wolf – were deemed appropriate.
* * * * * * *
Approaching the site of the coil-spring and snare traps this morning, we were silent. I trained my ears on the location of the traps, which was not yet visible despite being only about 75-yards ahead of us in the trees. I rested my hand on my bear spray even though the two trappers ahead were carrying shotguns. The four of us – two with shotguns, two with bear spray – seemed an appropriate sized party for the small black bear that we now expected to find just ahead of us in the trees. It was nothing like the posse that we had the first morning we went to check the traps.
I was not smiling today. I knew what was almost certainly waiting for us in the trap ahead, and I knew what was going to happen to it.
The grizzly bear is designated as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. As such, great efforts are taken to protect it. “Problem grizzly bears” are usually relocated, sometimes hundreds of miles from the site of conflict, and are given multiple chances to “correct” for behaviors that hinder or endanger people and human activity. Not to say that grizzly bears are not sometimes euthanized, specifically those individuals that continue to cause trouble for people, but it is something of a last resort and requires approval from high-ranking federal wildlife biologists. Killing domesticated livestock is not by itself justification for the lethal removal of a grizzly bear. It is however, a death sentence for a black bear.
There was still no sound coming from just beyond the tree line, where I knew there were four carefully set, buried, and camouflaged traps and a remote camera surrounding a pile of decaying sheep carcasses. I couldn’t see any of this, but I knew exactly where everything was. I had spent enough time there these last four days to see it clearly in my mind. I knew where to look. I strained my eyes on the spot that I could not see; where I expected to hear the thrashing and panic of a wild animal that can smell the approach of four humans and is unable to escape.
“There he is,” said the younger trapper in an expressionless tone. I looked up to see the bear, small but with what seemed to be very long legs, standing quietly and watching us. The bear was jet-black except for a brownish-tan muzzle, and I was struck by the color of his eyes, which I could clearly make out from 25-yards. His eyes were hazel; the color of coffee with just enough cream in it, but they shined like glass. The lightness of the eyes stood in stark contrast to the bear’s raven-black coat.
The older trapper signaled to the younger, who approached the bear with his shotgun deftly positioned against his shoulder. The rest of us stood out of the way where we could watch what was about to happen. The small black bear with long legs did not move or make a sound but simply watched with expressionless hazel eyes.
* * * * * * *
The morning that the shepherd boss, the older trapper and I first investigated the scene of the depredations we visited every single sheep in turn. The second sheep we found, after the ewe, was a lamb. Still breathing, the lamb had managed to writhe its way into a small hollow under a tree root. Injuries sustained around the lambs neck and a similar attack pattern indicated that the lamb’s attacker was the same who had killed the ewe and eaten her udder less than 100-yards away. The shepherd boss grabbed the lamb by the wool on the back of the neck and the top of the rump and removed her from her hiding place with the effortlessness and skill of a man whose hands have carried and protected lambs for longer than he can remember. His dark Peruvian face, that I had only ever seen wear two expressions: a look of indifference or (more commonly) a laughing grin, now wore the disappointed and pained look of a father. With a quick movement of his hand he cut the lamb’s throat.
Despite what is commonly depicted on screen and what I once imagined, cutting something’s throat is not done in the same manner that one slices off a piece of cheese. In life (so to speak), a knifepoint is inserted deep into the side of the neck and then arteries have to be cut with a motion that looks like the forceful sawing-off of a piece of stale bread. Mercifully, the shepherd boss was expertly quick and efficient at this. Also contrary to popular depiction, when something’s throat is cut, it does not die instantly. Blood pumps uselessly from the wound until not enough remains in the body for the heart to beat or the brain to think. This is how the lamb died. I heard it kick twice, minutes later as we looked for tracks near the ewe’s carcass.
The remaining seven sheep left to find and autopsy that morning were all lambs. The first had been disemboweled like the ewe. The second had been killed by a wound on the throat, but not consumed. The third was found in a tree where the shepherd, whose sheep these had been, had placed it to keep away scavengers and his dogs. Presumably this was the first carcass he found, as it was the only one that he had hung in a tree. The fourth was killed in the same manner as the others but not consumed. The fifth was a black-faced lamb that was still breathing and had to have its throat cut. The sixth was like the second and the fourth. The seventh was on its feet and walking in circles when we found it. Its spine had been broken by the bear. The shepherd boss had to corner her, take her off her feet and place her on the ground before cutting her throat and letting her bleed to death.
* * * * * * *
The older trapper was standing right beside me. He put his hands over his ears. I did not get mine up in time. I heard the crack of the shotgun and watched the small bear with long legs and hazel eyes crumple. The bear’s body did not seem to react to the impact of the buckshot that hit it in the face: its head was not pushed back, its neck did not contract, it did not step or fall backwards. There was no horizontal movement whatsoever, which made it seem that the gun had had no effect at all. Instead the extinguished bear collapsed directly into the ground like a dress falling off a hanger. It was as if the trapper had not shot the bear, but had instead shot the invisible puppeteer who held and then dropped the strings, which were all that had held the animal in a posture of graceful composure that indescribably and unmistakably announces life. Without its strings, what used to be a small black bear with long legs was now nothing but a hastily discarded fur coat.
The chest of the heap was inflating and deflating, in hurried, shallow contractions when I arrived to stand over it. Through some lifeless reflex, the heart and lungs of what used to be a small bear struggled on for half a minute. I thought that I should be horrified to find the crumpled shell of the bear still alive. But it was not alive. The heart beat, but the hazel eyes had turned to marbles. The lungs contracted, but not the faintest sigh came from the motionless lips and no imperceptible current disturbed the stream of blood steadily draining from the heap’s nose. Pieces of shot had entered the bear’s skull in a number of places, now clearly highlighted by the coagulating trickles leaving the heap and forming dark red puddles under its ears and muzzle. There was no more bear. Its death had been easier than the lambs’, which had writhed and walked in circles for hours until a shepherd came to open their throats. I knew this, but I could not look away from the heap that used to be a bear with long legs and hazel eyes.
I took measurements and notes. The bear was smaller than we had believed – about 150 pounds – smaller than a three-year-old bear should be at the end of July, but not starving. It was a good year for berries and other “natural” bear foods. I wondered why the bear should have been as small as it was, just a few months from hibernation. Perhaps it had some parasite. That might explain what had driven an inexplicably undernourished black bear to resort to killing sheep in a productive food year. We’d never find out. I photographed the heap’s paws and teeth (the spacing and diameter of the canines was a perfect match). I put my hand on its chest. I avoided the eyes. The herder boss, the younger trapper and I dragged the heap a couple hundred yards down the hill. It slid downhill easily on the loose talus. With a last swing we tossed the heap, which came to rest across the base of a tree. “Well, that’s the end of that,” someone said.
More Things in Heaven and Earth 