Читать книгу Hap Wilson's Wilderness 3-Book Bundle - Hap Wilson - Страница 38

Any wild animal is unpredictable; and we think we know more than we do about Nature, thanks to Disney and the world of anthropomorphized animated characters. A caged animal in a sanctuary that may have shown only the friendliest attitude toward humans may have some rogue primitive spark in their cerebrum that initiates an unprovoked attack. Or maybe it was just having a bad day. The case of the young handler who climbed into the wolf enclosure at the Haliburton wildlife sanctuary, unsupervised, thinking that the pack alpha female wouldn’t mind at all, was one of tragic misconception. As a result, she suffered a horrible death … and all the wolves were shot by local police in retaliation.

My brother was a cop for York Regional police back in the early 1980s. He was called to a country property, the home of a renowned bear trainer, where a woman had just been killed by a “pet” black bear. The trainer was in the habit of letting the bear out of its compound so the cage could be cleaned. The man’s girlfriend was asleep in the bedroom when the bear entered and started to maul her. She attempted to climb out the window but the bear clawed her legs so viciously, trying to drag her back in to the house that she bled to death in a matter of a few minutes. When the bear was finished, her legs looked as if they had been put through a shredding machine. It was surmised that the bear was attracted by the scent of a woman who was on her menstrual cycle. In fact, some parks agencies will not allow woman employees to go out into wild bear country during their period.

The fact that animals are more dangerous when they live in proximity to humans is not a surprise. More people obviously mean more incidents. Animals can display unusual characteristics, lose their normal fear of people, and people sometimes lose their sensibilities while experiencing an animal “event.” Heavily used parks are a good example. On a road trip through Yellowstone Park in Wyoming some years ago, there were several cars pulled over and a man was feeding a mother black bear through the window of his camper. Meanwhile, another man ran at the two cubs that accompanied the mother, attempting to snap a few pictures. The cubs bolted, crying in fear with the cameraman in hot pursuit. When the mother bear heard the cries of her two cubs she forgot about the handout and ran at the man with the camera, moving at almost twice the speed of the running man. Luckily, the man diverted an attack by climbing on top of a nearby car.

In Algonquin Provincial Park, where most animals, both large and small, have been subject to all manner of studies and surveys, one can view moose at any time of the day along the Highway 60 corridor that runs through the park. Again, with cars stopped on both sides of the road, a man was trying to photograph a moose calf while its mother, nearby, hackles raised on the back of her neck, paced nervously back and forth. Little did the man with the camera realize that a cow moose is a deadly threat. Take for example the case a few years ago in Alaska where a man was kicked to death by a cow moose protecting her calf — right in front of a public building, captured on film by an onlooker.

In March of 2005, a cow moose came into the yard and began licking the road salt off my truck that was parked in the driveway. I went outside to chase her off when she began tugging at the wiper blades with her teeth. I soon realized that it wasn’t interested in going anywhere. I did a little human-animal bonding test by inserting rice crackers I keep in the glovebox for my kids, into the side of the moose’s mouth. And that’s an interesting bit of moose trivia if you ever get the opportunity to hand-feed a moose; because of the size of their snout, they can’t take snacks from your palm like a horse. Moose have this strange lip thing going on, raised at the side in a kind of sardonic grin — a perfect place to shove rice crackers. She then followed me around the truck, nudging my shoulder for more crackers. I scratched her behind the ears and combed my fingers through her neck hair. I went back in the house, got my two young children, and placed them in the box of the truck so they could watch from a safe perch. When the cow nudged up beside my kids they were allowed to put their arms around its neck. I took a picture.

Now, when I look back at this episode, I think that even if this cow had been released from a wildlife sanctuary, it was a stupid thing for me to do. I rely on my instinct, maybe too much so; even though I had a generally good feeling about this cow moose and the somewhat secure location of my kids, I didn’t allow for the remote possibility that this cow moose might be a bit mercurial in nature. It did make for some interesting family photographs though.

Everybody has an animal tale they like to tell, and when a bunch of casual adventurers get together there’s always a vigorous competition about who has the best or most outrageous wild animal story. I’ll usually relax into the banter, listening to chronicles about chipmunks in the peanut butter jar, and the saga with the mouse building a nest in the bottom of the food pack, a couple of moose sightings and maybe a bear sniffing around a campsite. Then, when the stories thin out, it’s my call to step in.

Call it swagger, call it braggadocio, but I love telling this story because it’s so bizarre. And few people believe it when I tell them, anyway, so I’m more likely to be branded a liar than a braggart. Two years ago I received a frenzied phone call from my other neighbour down the road, claiming that a bull moose was rampaging in her backyard and attacking her husband’s tarped boat. Pat was alone in the house and had just enough time to place two calls — one to me and one to Tony at the sanctuary — before the moose tore up a trough of sod on the lawn and cut off the phone line! I drove my pickup truck to her house thinking this would be an easy task to carry out. I’d corral and drive the bull using my truck and force it down their back lane onto an open field near the Rosseau River and that would be the end of it. When I arrived, the bull had its antlers under the plastic boat tarp and was tugging at it as if sparring with another bull. It was literally dragging a one-ton trailered boat across the lawn. I pulled my truck in behind it and laid on the horn. The moose retreated from its fight with the boat and I was able to “herd” it down the laneway and out in to the field, exactly as planned. That was easy, I thought, but the natural world always has its peculiarities that challenge what you may think or believe to be true: Don’t believe everything you think.

On my way back up the laneway to the house, feeling good about my quick success, I saw the bull’s head reflected in my rearview mirror. It was actually trying to pass me! I parked my truck in Pat’s parking lot, got out, and stood with my back against the side of the garage by the back lawn. The moose now made wide circles on the lawn in front of me, trotting slowly, keeping an eye on my movements. Pat was standing near the backdoor of the house when Tony finally arrived and sized up the situation. It was October, rutting season, and bull moose have been known to attack oncoming trains and roll over the occasional car. Tony and I looked at each other and smiled nervously. Now what? Tony said that he’d just finished feeding the captive cow moose at the sanctuary and that he probably had her smell all over him. I certainly didn’t notice but the bull did. He abruptly stopped his circling, waved his head from side to side, drooled and grunted, then approached Tony with his head lowered to the ground. Tony remained motionless. The bull then sniffed Tony from head to foot, turned and looked at me, head still lowered, eyes red and glowering, and the hackles rising on the back of his neck. Shit, this doesn’t look good.

I have had enough contact with wild animals to know not to make eye contact. I quickly diverted my eyes but watched the bull’s movements closely and hoped it wouldn’t charge. I was wrong. With head still lowered it moved toward me, not at a run but it closed the distance between us in seconds. I also knew enough not to run. I kept my eyes glued on the bull’s antlers and the sharp multi-pointed spears of bone heading directly for my abdomen. I dug my feet into the turf and grabbed at the moose’s antlers. I had no other choice. The next few moments were terrifying, not knowing what was going to happen; I could be dead on my neighbour’s lawn in five minutes. Pat thought Tony and I were both going to be killed.

But the moose just toyed with me, tugging gently, lightly jerking with me while I held on, trying to keep the antlers from ramming into my belly. At least by holding on I could keep the points at a safe distance; but if he wanted to, he could propel me through the side of the garage. Instead, we sparred gently but the jerks were getting more aggressive. “Tony, I don’t like this situation,” I remember saying through pursed lips.

“I’ll try something,” Tony assured, and began walking down the laneway toward the river. It was brilliant. The bull pulled away and started to follow Tony down the hill, so close, in fact, that his head was touching Tony’s shoulder. I assured Tony that I would follow from a safe distance and watch, just in case the bull turned on him. But it didn’t; the moose followed Tony across the field, along the river, and through a marsh that led to the sanctuary almost a kilometre away. By the time I got back in my truck and drove down the road to the sanctuary, Tony had led the bull moose into the compound that held the cow.

This was not unusual characteristics displayed by a somewhat quasi-domesticated moose with a seasonal hormonal imbalance; I can testify with authority that the lure of female company can make men stupid. Tony assured me that this particular bull had not been a sanctuary moose. As for his behaviour, he was doing what comes naturally, based on instinct and olfactory sensations, not to say much for his choice of female companionship.

Tony did have the right aroma, and I had stationed myself as the competition for Tony. Regardless of the comic intonations of the situation, it remained entirely unpredictable while it was unfolding. Personally, I try not to get into this type of close confrontation, but as a wilderness guide and wildlife photographer I find that these encounters happen frequently enough.

It’s one thing to be looking for large animals to photograph or study, it’s quite another affair when they either seek you out, or you come in contact by sheer chance and circumstance. Seeking out wildlife by design requires a stout knowledge of animal behaviour; you control the situation so long as you don’t push your luck. A couple of years back I was hiking the tundra in the Thelon River headwater area, about eight kilometres west of Whitefish Lake in the Northwest Territories. It was open country, defined by sand eskers, small kettle lakes, felsenmeer (broken rock), and willow scrub.

Tundra wolves were a common sight, but I was looking specifically for muskoxen. I climbed a high ridge for a better view beyond and came upon a herd of oxen — four calves and twelve adults, grazing on the flats across a pond at the base of the hill. The wind was in my favour and, so long as I kept the pond between me and them, I could get quite close to the herd. Approaching them as if I were just another muskox, bent over and pausing every few moments to “graze,” I was able to get within fifty metres to snap the shots I wanted. The bulls had formed a circle around the females and the young muskoxen. When I approached a bit too close, two bulls broke away from the circle and made a wide swing to come in behind me. I retreated slowly. The one bull was now downwind of where I stood and caught my scent; in an instant the whole herd was on the move.

Muskoxen can be dangerous at close range and they have been known to gore people to death with their horns. Normally, oxen are seen ambling along the shores of northern rivers and lakes and confrontations are unlikely. One of my clients, however, while paddling the Coppermine River, had an unforgettable experience with a muskox while fishing. We were camped at a rapid, still within the treed zone of the river, and Norm went off downstream to fish for trout. Lake trout were visible at the surface along the shore and it was no problem to catch one. After latching on to an exceptionally large trout, Norm had to walk along the shore in an attempt to keep it on the light line he was using. While doing so, he almost tripped over a muskox that was lying on the turf beside the river. The animal was not at all pleased at being disturbed but Norm refused to let go of his rod with the trophy lake trout that was to be our dinner still attached. Norm and the muskox backed away from each other and retreated safely; the trout ended up in the fry pan for dinner.

This was a case of sudden and unexpected encounter, and in almost all instances, regardless of species, the abruptness of contact sends both parties scurrying for safe cover. This has happened to me on a number of occasions, with wolf, moose, and bear, and each time the animal has bolted. It’s not good practice to run from a bear, but to back away slowly without making eye contact. Three situations can be of concern: getting in between the mother and its young (primarily moose and bear); paddling a canoe directly in front of a swimming animal; and disturbing a bear’s fresh kill site.

My own research into fatal or near-fatal animal attacks puts humans as the cause of the confrontation: hiking in restricted zones where bear have been sighted and noted as a risk; getting too close for photographic opportunities; despoiling the campsite with garbage or fish cleaning; ignorance of wildlife habits and their respective environments.

While camping in polar bear country, usually along the Hudson Bay coastline, I always employ a “watch” system through the Arctic night, each camper taking a one to two-hour watch. Polar bear have been known to stalk humans, and now with the shortage of food offshore and the effects of global warming, these predators range several hundred kilometres inland. This alters the dynamic of Arctic travel and the level of caution employed. Modern voyageurs are well-equipped with hard gear but often naive about wildlife and their habits, failing to learn enough about potential problems so that when something does happen, they are ill-prepared. Some wilderness guides scoff at the idea of bringing a rifle along during trips in grizzly or polar bear country, and have never had a confrontation. Others who carry guns regularly seem to have more incidents of wildlife “events” simply, perhaps, because of the questionable gun karma. I stopped taking a gun along on my trips because of the weight and general nuisance trying to keep it from rusting. Instead, I carry a bear-blaster pen that lobs power-packed firecrackers about seventy-five metres, hopefully in front of a nosy bear and not behind it. It takes a couple of shots to get the distance down to an art — one displaced shot could turn the bear at a fast sprint toward you.

My late friend Bob Hunter, co-founder of Greenpeace, of whom I had the pleasure of sharing a canoe with on many a wayward adventure, was deathly afraid of bears. On a trip down the Caribou River in northern Manitoba, near the Nunavut border, we came into contact with a polar bear near the Hudson Bay coast. Our group was enjoying a quiet shore lunch when a bear approached across the river and ambled down to the shore. Everyone grabbed their cameras and took pictures. When the bear slid silently into the river, no more than seventy-five metres away, and started to swim toward us, the cameras were quickly dispensed and everyone turned to me — the guide — wondering what I was going to do to protect them. I had a twelve-gauge shotgun with me with two magazines — one with bear-blasters, and the other with hollow-nose slugs. The last thing I wanted to do was to shoot a bear. Knowing that a polar bear is a proficient swimmer, I quickly peeled the gun from its case and loaded the clip with the blasters. Before I could fire a warning shot, the bear seemed to sense something and abruptly turned back toward shore where it quickly disappeared over the boulder field downriver. Since we were heading in that direction not knowing exactly where the bear would be, fear and trepidation prevailed until we cleared the area and had paddled a good five kilometres downstream. Bob was now paranoid about bear confrontations and insisted on setting his tent up close to mine because I had the gun. Bob was a dear soul to me, and he had some residual habits carried over from the Greenpeace days — he liked his bit of weed and a mickey of rye before he crashed for the night; he would practice drawing his knife from its sheath (not to stab the bear but to cut a retreat hole in the back of the tent), test to see how fast he could take the safety off the can of bear spray (much to the chagrin of his tent-mates), and finally lining his knife, bear spray, and whistle alongside his sleeping bag. Bob would pop a couple of sleeping pills, slip on his eye mask, and then fall asleep literally dead to the world. I told Bob that he wouldn’t have to worry because the bear would probably think he was dead, anyway, and move on.

I had a black bear step over me as I slept in the open on a beach in Algonquin Park. He was on his way to the food pack which was leaning up against a tree nearby. I was sixteen at the time and I was terrified. Three boys had been mauled to death by a black bear earlier that season on the Petawawa River. They had been fishing and had wiped the fish smell on their clothing. My friends and I peered cautiously out of our sleeping bags as the bear wrestled with our pack. We had been windbound for two days and had run out of food so the bear quickly lost interest in the empty pack and wandered off. Since then I have had no less than a hundred bear encounters, mostly while homesteading north of Mattawa, Ontario, — a community renowned for its bear poaching prowess.

Every bear has its own personality, much like humans do, and that’s why the bear was revered by people of the First Nations as a sacred being. Skinned out, a bear looks just like a human, except for the skull and claws. It’s also smart. A bear can quickly figure out how to get a suspended pack down from a tree hoist (bear piñata), or set off a leg trap by dragging brush over it … or tear open the side of a tent to get at the package of trail mix buried in the side pocket of a day pack. Bears are moody creatures, and if they find food at someone’s campsite they are reluctant to leave it; and they’ll keep coming back no matter how many pots you bang, air horns you blast, or sticks you throw at it. The only recourse is to move to another site. It’s actually not hard to tell if a bear has been frequenting a campsite. Campers could save themselves a lot of grief if they were to first scan the general area looking for bear scat. If previous campers left garbage, fish entrails and even human feces scattered about, then it’s best to move on. Overturned rocks and logs signature a bears search for grubs, hornets, and ants — what they’ll eat between visits by campers.