THE BEAR EXPERIENCE

Rex Burress

The stories of big animals, as with stories of big fish, are prone to be enhanced in the excitement of the recall. First it was big elk that inspired me, then big moose, and now comes the third major North American monstrosity, the bear. Big records, however, must be verified to be official.

Bears strike close to home, since they are appearing more frequently in foothill towns along the Feather River, where bear stories from Paradise prevail, but the town is actually in the forest and subjected to woodland ways.

I was crystal hunting with rock friend John Hees one time over in Butte Creek Canyon west of Paradise, and at the rim we parked in a dense stand of berry-laden manzanita. As we prepared to descend the steep slope down to the crystal site, we beheld steaming piles of bear poop! Although we did look very diligently for Ursus americanus the Black Bear, they had visibly fled. The near-encounter tinged the air with wildness. The bears did not even have to see us to know that man was about-- they smelled us! Bears have the keenest sense of smell of any animal, even dogs.

I did collect a nice firm pile of bear manure and housed it in a box marked “bear” to display at the Feather River Nature Center where it dried, and it was a big joke-exhibit for awhile. The sense of curiosity is irresistible when the closed paper box is marked bear! You can touch any of the exhibits in this Bathhouse Nature Museum! We picked the bear-poop exhibit off the floor several times!

In spite of the bear's massive size, wicked claws, and carnivorous capability, they feed largely on berries, grubs, and small animals. Thus we were camping in Glacier National Park one time when the blueberries were ripe, and the trails around the area were bristling with bears! People wore bells to announce that they were coming through, and the bears respected the trail courtesy.

There are only eight extant bear species now living in the world, including the Black Bear of California...even though the state has the Grizzly on the CA flag! Numerous fossil-bear species have been found, from 30mya [million years ago]--raccoon-like bears to pandas 19mya, to short-faced bears 13mya, to modern Ursus 5mya. Oddly, the Brown species includes the Polar Bear!

Black bears are sometimes brown, as was the furred thief at Oakland Feather River Camp one summer. It became a consistent menace, ripping car trunks open if there was a potato chip inside, and pilfering cabins. Finally Fish and Wildlife was called, and they brought a large cage trap, baited it with bacon, and caught the culprit. I leaned against the cage before the truck came [to take it 40 miles away—one chance!], and I'll never forget those brown eyes scarcely 6 inches from my blue eyes! It looked human and seemed to be pleading with me. Indeed! John Muir said if there was a war between the bears and lord man, he would be tempted to side with the bears!

Down by the Feather River riverside near the Nature Center, a magnificent iron bear stands on a rock with a silver salmon in its mouth. The sculpture was created by Oroville artist Steve Nielsen, along with eight other path-side native animals.

Bears have been a popular subject for artists and storytellers down through the ages. I even succumbed to the idea of painting a standing giant bear looking down on a bare lady bathing!There are bears overhead in the constellations. Who hasn't been influenced by Goldilocks and the Three Bears [1837]? Or Smoky the fire-prevention bear? And the always gallant Teddy Bear/Theodore Roosevelt story [1902]?

“Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.”

--James Rollins

“Bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drinks the same water, and its life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours and was poured from the same fountain.” John Muir

Yogi Berri was some kind of bear: “You can observe a lot by just watching.”