Watched by Wild Animals

by Enos A. Mills

The grizzly does not climb trees, but the black bear climbs almost as readily as a cat. With its cat-like forepaws it can simply race up a tree trunk. He climbs a small pole or a large tree with equal ease.

The black bear might be called a perching animal. Much of his time, both asleep and awake, is spent in treetops. Often he has a special tree, and he may use this tree for months or even years. When closely pursued by dogs, or the near-by appearance of a grizzly, or if anything startling happen, instantly a black bear climbs a tree. The black bear is afraid of the grizzly.

In case of danger or when leaving on a long foraging expedition the mother usually sends her cubs up a tree. They faithfully remain in the tree until she returns. One day in Wild Basin, Colorado, while watching a mother and two cubs feeding on travelling ants, the mother quietly raised her head then pointed her nose at the cubs. Though there was not a sound the cubs instantly, though unwillingly, started toward the foot of a tree. The mother raised her forepaws as though to go toward them. At that the cubs made haste toward the tree. At the bottom they hesitated; then the mother with rush and champing Whoof! simply sent them flying up the trunk. Then she walked away into the woods.

In the treetop the cubs remained for hours, not once descending to the earth. It was a lodgepole pine sixty or seventy feet away and several feet lower than my stand, on the side of a moraine. For some minutes the cubs stood on the branches looking in the direction in which their mother had disappeared. They explored the entire tree, climbing everywhere on the branches, then commenced racing and playing through the treetop.

At times their actions were very cat-like; now and then squirrel-like; frequently they were very monkey-like; but at all times lively, interesting, and bear-like. Occasionally they climbed and started wrestling far out on a limb. Sometimes they fell off, but caught a limb below with their claws, and without a pause, swung up again or else dropped to another limb. Once they scrambled down the trunk within a few feet of the bottom; and as they raced up again the lower one snapped at the hind legs of the upper one and finally, attaching himself to the other with a forepaw, pulled him loose from the tree trunk. The upper one thus exchanged places with the lower one and the lively scramble up the trunk continued.

After a while one curled up in a place where three or four limbs intersected the tree trunk and went to sleep. The other went to sleep on his back on a flattened limb near the top of the tree.

Realizing that the cubs would stay in the tree, no matter what happened, I concluded to capture them. Though they had been having lively exercise for two hours they were anything but exhausted. Climbing into the tree I chased them round from the bottom to the top; from the top out on limbs, and from limbs to the bottom—but was unable to get within reach of them.

Several times I drove one out on top of a limb and then endeavoured to shake him off and give him a tumble to the earth. A number of times I braced myself on a near-by large limb and shook with all my might. Often I was able to move the end of the limb rapidly back and forth, but the cubs easily clung on. At times they had hold with only one paw—occasionally with only a single claw; but never could I shake them free.

The affair ended by my cutting a limb—to which a cub was clinging—nearly off with my hatchet. Suddenly breaking the remaining hold of the limb I tossed it and the tenacious little cub out, tumbling toward the earth. The cub struck the earth lightly, and before I had fully recovered from nearly tumbling after him came scrambling up the tree trunk beneath me!