The Animals of Grandfather Mountain An Animal Caretakers Tales by L. L. Mitchell

Author:L. L. Mitchell
Format: epub

Chapter 4: Mr. Trashcan

Driving up the winding road on Grandfather Mountain one morning, I saw that every trashcan along the roadside had been knocked over ... again. And not only were the cans knocked over, trash was strewn in all directions. That annoying wild bear was back!

I dreaded walking through the habitat trails that morning because I knew every trashcan would be knocked over there as well. When "Mr. Trashcan" visited the mountain, he didn't just meander along the road. He also invited himself into the habitats.

Sure enough, as Pam, Rene', and I rounded the corner, one of the green trash barrels was turned over in front of the bald eagle habitat. Wilma, as always, spotted me. Her wild display of head feathers was sticking up crazily, and she and Sam had petrified looks on their faces. They'd been chattering even before they spotted us.

The trashcans were turned over at the bear habitat and deer habitats as well. The deer themselves looked frightened and winded, as if they'd been running. All heads were staring toward the back of their habitat and all ears were pricked in that direction. Their white tails were sticking straight up ... a sign of danger. Frowning, I walked into the deer habitat and down the hill in the direction the deer were looking. I heard a strange metallic noise.

"Pam! I think he's still here!" I called as I ran to the back of the habitat and up the large rock we called "the birthing rock" where I could get a good view of the service road.

There he was! A half-grown skinny black bear had somehow trapped himself on the service road. The ten-foot high fence and slanted chain-length arms at the top of the fence kept him from climbing out, but that hadn't kept him from trying. When he saw me, he really flipped out.

Pam reached my side and we both stared at the bear, reckoning that he'd smelled the deer's sweet feed and corn and had climbed over the rocks to get to it. When he'd heard us coming down the trail, he had run to the back of the habitat and scaled the first fence, but couldn't get over the perimeter fence because of the overhang at the top. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and we didn't know what to do.

We did know that we couldn't let that bear get away. I called maintenance for backup. Maintenance did not know what to do, either. Removing wild bears was not one of their fortes--only picking up after them was.

I knew I needed to tranquilize that bear with a dart gun so the wildlife people could take him away and release him. I was afraid that if we let him escape, he would come in after the food again. Black bears are mostly vegetarians, but the does had been dropping fawns, and I knew a bear would not pass up the opportunity of a tasty fawn snack if he stumbled across one.

We decided to move the bear down the service road to get him away from the frightened deer.

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