The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game by Steven Rinella

Author:Steven Rinella [Rinella, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9407-0
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2015-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

Serious bighorn sheep hunters like to see a ram next to other rams so that they can compare the animals and get a relative idea of the selected animal’s size.

BLACK BEAR

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Ursus americanus

A.K.A.: Blacky, bruin.

Famed hunter and explorer Daniel Boone once killed 155 black bears in a single year. He brined and smoked the meat and sold it as “bear bacon.” Today, most American hunters who do hunt bears will kill only one or two in their lifetimes. For them, bears are regarded as a novelty species, something to break up the monotony of a lifetime of whitetail deer hunting. For some hunters, though, black bear hunting becomes a highly anticipated annual event. What’s great about hunting bears is that you can typically chase them during the spring of the year, when all other big game besides turkeys is off-limits. What’s more, bear flesh can be a welcome deviation from the meat of hoofed animals such as deer and elk. It’s often described as a hybrid between beef and pork, and works well as a smoked meat. The fat of a black bear can be rendered into high-quality oil that fluctuates between a solid and liquid at room temperature. It works incredibly well in pie crusts and can be used as a frying medium as well. And when the meat and oil of a bear are long gone, you’ll still have a wonderful trophy. Unlike the hollow hair of ungulates such as deer and elk, bears have beautiful and luxuri ous fur. The tanned hides can be made into floor rugs, wall hangings, and even comforters for your bed. This animal should be regarded as a worthy quarry for any serious hunter.

BARROOM BANTER: In many areas, black bears have surprisingly small home ranges for an animal of their size. Some black bears will spend their entire lives within 5 miles of where they were born, and will spend an entire summer on a single square mile of ground. Despite their homebody nature, black bears have tremendous navigational skills. On many occasions, black bears that have been trapped and relocated have traveled well over 100 miles across unfamiliar terrain, including urban centers, to return to their home turf. They have also been known to swim long distances, sometimes traveling back and forth on a regular basis from islands that are beyond sight from the mainland.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: Mostly black in the eastern United States. In the West, colors range from black to blond. It seems that color phases are linked to annual precipitation. Wet areas, particularly in coastal environments, tend to have primarily black-phase black bears; dryer inland climates have far greater percentages of blond-phase and brown-phase bears. Interestingly, there’s a population of blue-phase black bears near Yakutat Bay, Alaska, and a population of white-phase bears on Gribbell Island, British Columbia. Males achieve weights in excess of 500 pounds and body lengths in excess of 6 feet in areas with abundant food and a mild climate. Females are typically much smaller.

DIET: Omnivores, black bears are opportunistic feeders with a wildly varied diet.

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