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Tracking a wounded bear with Bob and Vrena |
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On Wednesday, July 27, 2000 at
approximately 3:45 PM I received a call from the DEC office in Buffalo
that they had a black bear which was involved in a motor vehicle
accident. The bear was wounded and they were only able to track it about
100 yards. Would I be interested in helping locate the injured bear? Did
they really think I would say NO?
I rounded up my tracking equipment, got on my hunting clothes, and as I entered the kitchen from the basement, guess who was there ready for a new adventure. My little wirehaired dachshund Vrena! She ran back and forth from the kitchen to the garage at least a couple of hundred times, knowing she was about to go tracking. Any trouble getting into the truck? She opened the door for me! While traveling the 90 miles to the town of Cuba, I was trying to understand the conditions we had. It was hot, about 80+ degrees, sunny and dry. Not ideal tracking conditions… and we were going to track a bear, both Vrena's and my first. And, yes, I was excited about the whole thing! The Environmental Conservation Officer Region 9, Tom Hansen, met me on Crab Hollow Road and Rte 305 and took me to the accident site. There we met the rest of the group who were going to help track the bear. Vrena and I, ECO Tom Hansen, two Fish & Wildlife Tech II Region 9, Gary Klock and Tom Jurczak and the driver of the vehicle Ken Kellner, who hit the bear. The bear was hit around 12:30 PM earlier in the day. According to Ken, the bear was running alongside his pickup truck while Ken was towing a flat bed trailer. The bear tried crossing between the truck and trailer. Even bears are not that fast or strong. The trailer hit the bear and rolled it underneath the trailer. Ken stopped and both he and his son watched the bear run across a growing hay field and enter some scrub brush. A good amount of blood was on the road and entering the field. By now it was about 6:30 PM, still hot, and we were all ready to go. Vrena's tracking collar and leash were on, she had a quick drink of water (me, too); the five of us talked over our procedure - someone with a gun would stay close to me and Vrena and the rest would lag behind and verify that we were tracking blood. Off we went. I placed Vrena on the road where there was blood and she followed it into the hayfield. Did you know that dachshunds have short legs? As she tracked through the field, we were spotting blood, and when we entered the scrub brush, a fenced-in pasture with cow droppings and deer tracks, we found about a four-inch pool of blood. Vrena seemed a bit apprehensive about it. She made a few corrections and started walking through the pasture. The guys in the group kept reassuring me by hollering out that they were finding blood. Yes - we were still on the track. The brush was thick and we were moving into a semi-swampy area where I had to separate the stalks and Vrena would walk through between my legs. It was possible to see that the trail we were on was used by deer and every once in a while a bear paw print was visible.
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We crossed a
small creek with about 4" or 5" of water and traveled along
side a cut hay field. A woodchuck, Vrena's favorite in summer hunting,
ran across the field, ran across the field. Vrena saw it and we were off
the track. We sat for a few minutes, drank some water. Boy, was it warm
- HOT! A comment was made that water was dripping off the brim of my DSI
hat. I did say it was warm!
I decided to go back to the last blood which was just across the creek; I picked up Vrena and reset her on the blood. She started tracking and took us through another swampy area (the ground was really soft - no standing water) and we found three more beds. Vrena seemed to be going in a circle. I let her work out two more trails and just before starting the third one, one of the other guys in the group said he heard something moving through the brush. We all got together and I said we only have about 45 minutes of daylight left - we had been tracking for about an hour and 45 minutes by now. I let Vrena take us through another wound bed with more blood and as she was entering some low hanging brush, she started growling. I tightened up on her leash and got down next to her to be able to see. There was the bear, lying down, but still alive. The bear was trying to get up but couldn't. In my best, not very excited voice I called ECO Tom Hansen to get over as quickly as possible. Tom asked, "Do you have the bear?" and I said, "Yes, hurry up!". Tom was there in a flash. He angled for a good shot and dispatched the bear with his rifle. Now everyone was at the site, backslapping and pats on the head for Vrena. Vrena started sniffing the bear - at first she was hesitant, but then her instincts took over. The Tasmanian devil was biting away. We dragged the bear out into a farm road and Ken gutted it. One of the Wildlife Techs walked back to the road and brought a 4x4 truck back to get the bear out. It was now about 9:00 PM, dark and everyone was glad the track was over (we were tracking about two and a half hours). We estimated that the male black bear weighed about 175 pounds and was between 2.5 to 3 years old. The gash between his hind legs was caused by the accident. Vrena had a long drink; I had to pick her up and put her in the crate. She was pooped and her job was done. Thank you ECO people and the drivers who cared enough not to let the bear suffer.
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