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Monday, July 9, 2018

Adventures of Tiny the Black Bear

Tiny is my favorite black bear, after only Milton, who I fear is dead. Tiny is so huge that he dwarfs other bears in our area.

Over the past couple of weeks, the bear mating frenzy has died down. Tiny is alone most of the time. One of his favorite things to do is find water to drink, bathe, and swim.

His choices for finding water are limited as many water holes are completely dried up. He did find a stock tank. He took a long drink and then climbed in. Will it be big enough? You'll see in the video.

The next night, Tiny found a much better place to swim - a real pond! He swam in circles, looking as if he was simply enjoying cooling off, like a human! And, discovering that he swam in this particular pond solved a mystery for me of why he was regularly showing up at a certain marking tree soaking wet.

When I last posted about Tiny, someone commented "I'd hate to meet him on the trail". Within an hour of reading that comment, I got a note from a friend saying "Met your big bear. HUGE!!!!". Amazingly, I discovered that I had a cam in the vicinity of that encounter.

Here was Tiny running from my friend.

And here was my friend continuing his commute to work after recovering from the shock of meeting such a huge bear.
Even though Tiny probably weighs about twice as much as my friend, Tiny fled from him. That fact made me SO happy. As long as Tiny is afraid of people, he stands a much better chance of staying alive.

Here's the footage in the form of a short video.

16 comments:

  1. he is amazing and he became more "my bear" than all micky mouses and lassies I ever saw in tv ;O)

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  2. oh my, your video has lifted my heart.. seeing him swimming around like a person just blew me away. so glad he is scared of people, that said, the bike rider is brave to ride past bear trees on the way to worke. Jake is not good, horrible week end, waiting for vet office to open

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  3. Smart bear! I love him in the pond. I bet that felt good.

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  4. Hari OM
    Oh my word... I's in llluurrrvvv wid Tiny da Big Bear Boy!!! Thank you for sharing him with us. YAM xx

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  5. Tiny sure loves water. It's nice to see he has a healthy fear of humans.

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  6. OMCs what wonderful photos and video....
    The stock tub was good for cooling his Tiny Tush but the little pond...what a sight.
    Your friend's commute is certainly pretty. Thank goodness for Tiny fleeing.
    Hugs madi and mom

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  7. Tiny looks so much happier in the pond than in the stock tank. I am so happy that he ran away from your friend!

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  8. So funny, so scary, and SO huge.He is a mighty animal.

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  9. We love Tiny, and we are sad about MIlton:( Tiny did a good job of at least trying to make that stock tank work for him. It was pretty funny to see him running from that human on the bike - just like Lightning:) But if that keeps him safe, then that is wonderful.

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  10. I love the picture of Tiny in the small tub. I think he is a big clown

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  11. More often than not, bears will flee from humans which is good thinking on their part. Tiny can swim another day.

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  12. It would be a bit startling running into Tiny on the way to work in the woods!

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  13. I hope Tiny continues to be afraid of people and people just let him be his wild self.♥

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