We’d heard from neighbors that a moose had a pair of twin calves on the little peninsula between Mud Bay and Viking Cove, where a huge mansion sits. The other day we learned that one of the twins had been killed by a brown bear. Ironically, the area is on the road side, the most developed part of our neighborhood.
Our peninsula has little to attract bears, other than the grasses on the bay (yes, bears graze) and moose calves in the forest. We rarely see bear sign, other than an occasional dung pile in the middle of the trail. our closest encounter came two years ago when a bear walked through our potato bed one morning.
Aly compares her hand size to a brown bear's tracks. (Zeiger family photo)
A neighbor on the bay says a brown bear comes and pulls the lid off his compost bin every year. People report seeing bears a couple of times each summer, mostly out on the grass flats.
At first the scarcity of bear food on the peninsula seemed comforting, until Michelle reasoned that weaker, sick, or old bears could be pushed out of the good areas into ours, where they’d be more likely to attack humans. Evidence hasn’t borne that out, but it’s something to consider, especially if you really want to give yourself the willies while walking the trail!
So, bears are around, but we don’t encounter them often. We’re always vigilant, watching for any wildlife, large or small, and bears fall into the general search pattern, but we rarely take other precautions, like carrying bear spray. Now that we know there’s a bear with a taste for moose flesh in the neighborhood, we’ll try to remember to carry a bear spray canister for a couple of weeks, until we start forgetting again.