God's Problem Bear...

Mojo tries to live a carefree life with few regrets. And usually, she's pretty successful at that, despite her silly Blog o' Complaints. But there is a recent moment in time I am now regretting, with a sort of vague sadness.

Let us cut to about a month ago, when I first reported about Problem Bear. I didn't name him. The honkin' big red tags stapled to his ears named him. "Problem Bear" is actually a technical term used by Fish & Wildlife folks to designate a bear that has become habituated to people and hence become a problem hanging around houses, dumping people's garbage, etc. While some people think it's "cute" to have wild animals eating food off their porches or sniffing at their window screens, it becomes far less cute when the animal starts destroying property or killing livestock or frightening defenseless little housewifey ladies.

So anyway, I go out to try to scare off Mister Problem Bear, and when I present myself to him and yell at him in my finest Fishwife Voice, he pays me practically no heed. We're about twenty feet from each other, me in my bathrobe trying to yell all scary, and him eating blackberries and just sort of looking at me between mouthfuls.

He's a BIG fellow. Big and fat, and when he turns to look at me I got this utterly breathtaking picture of this big fluffy round bear head with the ears all pricked at me. The tags ruined it a little, but it was such a charming pose I stood there and debated getting the camera. It would have been the GREATEST portrait.

But I didn't like the idea of perpetuating his habituation with people and food, so instead of prolonging our relationship I got out the air horn and scared the bejeezus out of him. Which turned into more a portrait of comedy than Dignified Wildlife, as he just about killed himself to scramble away from me. And in our future encounters, he clearly learned his lesson. Don't Mess With Mojo.

Well, poor Problem Bear is no more. He has gone to meet his maker. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. Rung down the curtain, kicked the bucket, and joined the bleedin' Choir Invisible. So now I regret not taking that ultra-cool picture even more.

Rather than repeat myself, I shall just quote the email I sent my Favorite Husband at work, breaking the sad news to him.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a quick note saying I had seen the EPA cops at Mister Bear-baiter's house and I wondered what happened. I cc'd D. and he called his pals at the EPA. And just now I saw D. at the PO and he filled me in.

Turns out Neighbor Chucklehead WAS baiting the bear, and actually put up a TREE STAND on his property that was VISIBLE FROM THE ROAD. So yes, he apparently shot the bear with a bow that day, but unfortunately for him the EPA was onto him and caught him red-handed (literally!) in his back yard with the tree stand and a bait station and a dead, freshly-arrowed bear. So he got fined and yelled at and D. thinks the bear got confiscated.

D. has yet to call in to see what happened to the carcass and whether they'd post-mortem to see how he hurt his leg. He says that's next on his list.

So poor big ol' Problem Bear is no more.

In happier news, I have Saturday off. So we can install the well pump together. How romantic!

Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to include the mash note part. Mojo can be SUCH a soppy love-struck fool.

So rest in peace, poor ol' Problem Bear. He's tipping over God's trash cans, now.... *sniff*

Mojo