The Bear, Part Two

Some Resolution, Some Uncertainty

The aftermath of my little bear attack was saturated with questions. Today, I’ll share with you the answers that I have.

Did they find the bear?

The bear was not hard to find, and the warden who visited me after the encounter was able to dart him - yes, it turned out to be a boy - and bring him in for observation.

He showed no signs of rabies, nor of human habituation. He showed all the signs of the encephalitis that is plaguing bears in this region. Odd and fearless behavior, canted head, even standing weirdly, with all his feet together, like a circus elephant balancing on a very small ball. Also, he was emaciated and weighed just 23 pounds; yearling bears at this time of year should weigh around 80 pounds.

They had to euthanize him, because his prospects for survival were terrible, even in captivity.

How do I feel about that outcome?

You know me - I get angsty when I displace spiders while pulling weeds. Spiders are not charming (at least not to most humans); bears are.

So at a gut level, it is really upsetting. I have shed a lot of tears over this bear, because it is impossible NOT to feel a connection to him, even though our encounter was completely random.

But intellectually, I know it was the right thing to do. Even if they could have rehabilitated him, a brain-diseased bear can’t survive in the wild, and would require a lot of expensive care in captivity. Even then, its prospects would be dim at best.

I think my biggest fear had been that he would be euthanized because he bit me. That would also be a rational action, because behaviors like that can’t be unlearned, and while a bite from a 23-pound bear is cute, a bite from a 230-pound bear is scary. Still, I would’ve felt guilty about that, because I generally mourn wildlife paying the price for human primacy in their own habitats.

But this was a cut-and-dried case of ending a sick animal’s life, something people do lovingly for their pets every day. I can accept guilt as a function of mercy.

What about my health?

No word yet on whether they’ve ruled out rabies with an autopsy, so I’m continuing the rabies treatment. The vaccination shots - four over 15 days - are no big deal, and this leaves me protected in the event of another completely random animal bite. The way things are going this year, I would not rule out more bizarre things happening to me. Pretty much banking on it.

Encephalitis risk appears to be close to zero.

The disease is admittedly not well understood yet. But to get encephalitis directly from the bear, I’m told I would have had to eat his brain. And the five viruses associated with bears that have encephalitis - relationship still unknown - are bear-specific.

Yes, viruses jump species barriers from time to time. But the risks are low. I’m probably at substantially greater risk of getting avian influenza from ducks I hunt than I am of getting encephalitis from this little bear bite. And the avian influenza strains in our birds have not jumped to humans (yet).

All that said, I’ve not heard of anyone else suffering a penetrating bite by a bear with encephalitis - just one non-penetrating bite from a captive bear to a gloved hand. I guess I’ll just have to call this one of the legions of low risks I face every day that I’m alive.

What about the mushrooms?

I went back up the hill Friday with my friend David and got into a small number of morels at 4300 feet, well below the location of the bear encounter.

We also visited the bear spot. Cup fungus had started coming up, so the morels should appear there soon.

But more importantly, I found and brought home the stick I used to keep the bear away from me. It was sitting on the ground right where I left it - you can see it in the video I included in last week’s post.

It’s a memento. It’s going on a wall. Oddly enough, I had been looking for something long and thin to fill a void in the living room. Voila!

What about my pants?

This, my friends, is where I pick up the thread of joy and hilarity: I got them back!

To recap, the warden asked for my pants so they could match DNA if he was able to get the bear. Later, he reached out and asked if I’d like them to send my pants back - the holes they need to cut for DNA testing are pretty small.

Yes, I told him. Of course! I love those pants!

FedEx delivered the package on Saturday, and OMG, I laughed and laughed. Here is my video of the unboxing (which Substack won’t display because it hates YouTube Shorts, and YouTube will only display this as a short - “progress!”).

Not sure why, but I thought it would be one hole. It didn’t occur to me that they would find and excise every speck of bear saliva.

For sure they got the location and orientation right. The “smile” of that sideways smiley face is the lower teeth; the “eyes” are the canines. The holes orbiting the smiley face are - I dunno - lip contact points?

I immediately began planning how to patch the holes in an interesting way, and a friend of mine told me to Google “visible mending,” which has really expanded the possibilities. Cool stuff there, if you’re a crafter of any sort.

I’m resisting cute, because the poor little guy died, and I don’t want to disrespect that. His death is sad. His suffering was sad. God, I hate suffering.

But I will continue to hunt and forage in these pants until they fall apart, and every time I do, they will remind me of the strangest damn thing that has ever happened to me.