Rain, bears, and bobcats!

This early summer has been extraordinary in the sheer quantity of rain that has fallen. Usually, summer days follow a predictable pattern of sunshine in the morning and thunder storms in the afternoon. This year, it's been raining all day long, including during my morning bike ride.

Shyla doesn't seem to mind because it's so nice and cool when it's raining. However, I actually get cold during our rides. It was 48° and raining this morning. The world is soaked!

I am wondering if this crazy weather is part of the reason why the bears are having trouble finding natural food. I don't remember any other year when there were NO berries on any buffalo berry bushes in July. Usually, Buffalo Berries are a staple for our bears at this time of year. I feel so sorry for the bears.

All that I can do is keep watching the bears and learning more about their behavior. It seems that I understand them a little better each year so I can be more effective in talking with neighbors about why the bears are behaving a certain way.

For example, when I tell people that our biggest bear, Tiny, has lived in our area for at least 5 years without any complaints from people about him until this food-starved year, it seems as if they begin to understand that he's simply a hungry bear and not some vicious monster.

I believe that, as a community, we need to do everything in our power to help the bears make it through this year without being killed for bad behavior. E.g., lock down the trash, lock all house windows and doors, lock all car doors, and make birdfood and compost inaccessible to bears. Did you know that compost is poisonous to all mammals, including our dogs and bears? Leaving it unprotected is a terribly selfish act.

I feel so passionately about protecting our bears because I've been watching the bears via my trail cameras for a half a decade. It makes me feel much more empathy for them than most people.

Although bear mating season is winding down, my trail camera captured some fascinating footage of a young female bear marking a tree, and then a bobcat marking the same tree about a day later.

Bears mark trees by rubbing against them with their backs and often urinating at the same time.

Usually, bobcats mark things closer to the ground. In this photo, a bobcat is rubbing his face on the rock and ground at the base of a bear marking tree.

To my surprise, I captured footage of a bobcat marking a bear marking tree by standing on his hind legs and rubbing his face as high on the tree as he could. As you'll see in the video, a bobcat stretched himself out to be very tall to mark the same tree as the bear. I have never seen anything like this before!!!!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I love learning new things about our wildlife. And, in the case of bears, knowing them better helps me to advocate for protecting them more effectively.