10 April 2010 To bear or not to bear or through a head lamp dimly

10 April 2010 To bear or not to bear or through a head lamp dimly


Gloria’s niece, Diana, is to be married today. Gloria is enjoying her trip to Florida. I’m looking forward to her return.

Last night Loki wanted to stay out and sniff the air. I was not amenable to that as I suspect she smelled the bear. Bears are territorial and will adopt an area and repeatedly wander it. We’ve had at least three other certain bear visits in the last year. Normally bears, unless they have cubs, will show some reluctance to approach humans. Having cubs makes them very likely to contest for ground. Normally bears can be caused to leave by making loud noises such as metal on metal, shouting, and whistles. The Thursday bear seem to have no fear of loud noises. It also was not alarmed by my presence or Loki’s barking. This makes me think that the bear has been fed by someone local and has lost its fear of humans. I heard rumors last fall that a local family was leaving cookies and candy out for a bear that was visiting them repeatedly. It appears that this was true.

Last night, when I took Loki out at 2200, I was using rechargeable AAA batteries in my head lamp. I use this head lamp in order to have both hands free. This particular head lamp, a Petzl Tikka XP, gets a lot of hours from regular alkaline AAA batteries. I’m still trying to figure out how long the rechargeables will power a 1W LED. The lamp signals end of battery life by blinking off and on three times and then returning to full power on status. Normally, I’ve been able to get three or four more night dog walks from regular alkalines at this point in their power curve. Last night, I could watch the beam dropping in brightness as the batteries lost remaining charge.

Normally, this would just mean a walk back to the house with very little light to see the surrounds. Last night, the dropping battery power was concurrent with the deck lights timing out and turning off. They’re set for 12 minutes of light when activated by motion. The potential for another bear visit was quite forward in my thoughts last night. The time was about the same as Thursday night’s visit. There was very little natural light last night at 2200. The head lamp signaled “no more charge” at the farthest point in the driveway from the house. The rapid charge depletion limited the effective sight distance to about 10 feet, and that’s when the deck lamp timed out.

I eventually convinced Loki that it was time to return indoors. This morning I searched the grounds for more evidence of bear incursions. I didn’t find anything new, no footprints, no attack on the trash can. I took a fair amount of trash out to the trash bin this morning. Some of it will likely be interesting to a bear. The can was dented when a bear helped itself to trash during last summer’s bear visit. Since then, I’ve been using a length of shock cord to secure the lid. To my knowledge, it has not been tested by a bear yet. While I’m not eager to find out, it appears we may get a chance to test the efficacy of my “fix.” Bears have learned to open cars by jumping on them in order to obtain food and other items left inside. I’m hoping there is enough natural food for this bear. A bear with no fear of humans, accustomed to foraging in trash cans, is far more dangerous to have around than a normal bear.