One of the highlights of our Hosting stay at Clackamas Fish and Wildlife was the experience of Bear Baiting.
The State of Oregon has identified a need to better determine the number, currently estimated at 25,000, of Black bears in the state. As a side note there is no other variety of bear in Oregon. Just the Black bear; Ursus americanus, "American black bear". They are the most common and smallest bears in the country. They are sometimes honey-colored, blond, brown or black. They may have a tan muzzle or white spot on their chest. In Oregon they are mostly just black. No more than 20% are shades of brown. Black bears weigh between 125 and 450 pounds. The male is usually larger and weighs an average of 275lbs and the female averages 175lbs. They are about 3' tall at the shoulder and may be 5'tall standing. They are agile and can run as fast as 35 mph, even up and down hills. As I read sometime ago in the book "Night of the Grizzlies"' that means if you see a bear standing on a ridge line 200 yards away, they can be standing next to you in about 20 seconds. Impressive! And Black bears swim and climb trees reasonably well.
Our introduction to Bear Baiting started with the "Bear Bait Wrapping Party". We were told to wear old clothes so it started rather ominously. That plus the fact that we covered all the tables in the conference room with butcher paper in preparation for the event. We showed up with a dozen or so other volunteers. I should point out that ODFW has many volunteers for different projects. Some of the things that come quickly to mind are habitat restoration of river and field, youth fishing, hunting checkpoints, fishing creel checks, bird banding, bird box making, and monitoring projects of all variety of critters and creatures. In this case there was a mixture of men and women and one child. She may have been 10 or 12(?) and did a very good job. The party started with an explanation of purpose and instructions. As I mentioned this is to determine bear population. That is done by the introduction of tetracycline into the bears system which stains the teeth. The teeth of harvested bears (that's state biologist talk for shot and kilt bears) are turned in by hunters. Then through some mysterious and magical algorithm bear population can be guessed at. We were told we wouldn't understand and I wasn't that interested anyway. It all kind of sounded like throwing darts or a just a plane old WAG (wild ass guess) to me. Definitely ODFW job security. I'm kidding! So! Let the party begin. Our job was to make Bear Bait sandwiches. That is done be wrapping/rolling tetracycline tablets in a strip of bacon; placing nine of these vertically on a slice of bread; topping it with another slice of bread; and then placing that in a mesh bag and closing it with a knot. "Viola!!" A Bear Bait sandwich. Why nine tablets? Another part of that mysterious formula? Or maybe because nine fit and ten wouldn't, or eight is just not enough to attract any self respecting glutton of a bear? Nine it was! As I recall, and Kat confirms it, we (the party) made some 400 sandwiches in three or four hours. We had refreshments if you didn't mind a little pork fat mixed in. Not a job I'd want but it was fun for the experience and, I'd bet lots of money on the fact, I'm the only family member who can say they've done it. And probably ever will do it!
Next came putting out the baits. They are placed all over the state in locals where there are or have been bears. I really have no clue how that is determined. But we put them on private timber and state land. I don't know about federal land , but I'm guessing they are placed there also. It wouldn't be a very accurate count without that. Kat and I went with Doug, the same Doug I mostly worked with. He is a fun and easy going guy and popular with the volunteers, especially for bear baiting. And he is quite knowledgeable about how it goes. So we're off in Doug's great big state pick-up truck to put out some bear bait. Baits are placed in selected areas by use of a Global positioning system, in what I think is a three square mile pattern with the baits being equidistant from each other, nine baits in a pattern. Pretty sure about that. I recall looking at the placement on the exploded GPS view. Nine baits is about all you could do in a day. Getting there is the fun part. We used local maps and GPS but the roads out there in bear country are not that good or reliably mapped. We encountered many gates which most of the time Doug had keys for, sometimes not. There were fallen trees, windblown trees with roots exposed leaving huge holes, boulders, and sometimes roads that ended abruptly in space. That happened once in some heavy fog and it was kind of scary. We determined many times that "you can't get there from here!" We traveled lots of logging roads, in a couple of cases Doug used the CB radio to warn log truckers of our position to avoid being run over. Some roads were nothing more than a pair of ruts, and some just really weren't there anymore. We were always running through lots of vegetation and taking lots of it with us. It was a rough ride, particularly for Kat who was in the back jump seat. But she was short person out, or back, in this case. This was one of those pick-ups where people like me and especially Kat needed a parachute to exit and a ladder to get in. Doug had added a little step stool with a string for pulling it in so that helped Kat some. Still it was difficult sometimes in the rough terrain. Baits are placed in Alder trees when available, about eight feet off the ground. Alders are picked because the claw marks are left making identifying "hit" baits easier. I think? Something like that. But we did have to use other types of trees a couple of times. A 2' long 2" by 4" is nailed to the tree with the mesh bag and bait attached. The idea is that the bait is out of reach of smaller critters and bears have to climb some into the tree making it easy to determine that it was a bear that took the bait and not something else. The baits are left out a week or so and then recovered. We did both but in different areas. Unfortunately, we saw no "hits" in the area that we recovered in. We did see lots of wildlife and beautiful country. At one location where we were placing a bait I thought I saw a bear as we were approaching. It was some distance but it was black and squat and to big for anything else I thought. When we got to the point Doug took a short walk to look around and came back rather sheepishly in a hurry. He said he had heard some 'rustling' in the brush. Based on what I thought I saw he said he was "just being cautious". As it turned out that bait was "hit" by a bear. So I feel justified in thinking that I did see one. And it's kind of neat thinking you saw a bear in the wild. Not something everybody gets to do. All in all it was a very rewarding and fun experience. One of those things you never in your wildest thoughts imagined you would do. And thanks to ODFW, the old "Hook and Bullet", and especially Doug, for allowing it to happen.
The State of Oregon has identified a need to better determine the number, currently estimated at 25,000, of Black bears in the state. As a side note there is no other variety of bear in Oregon. Just the Black bear; Ursus americanus, "American black bear". They are the most common and smallest bears in the country. They are sometimes honey-colored, blond, brown or black. They may have a tan muzzle or white spot on their chest. In Oregon they are mostly just black. No more than 20% are shades of brown. Black bears weigh between 125 and 450 pounds. The male is usually larger and weighs an average of 275lbs and the female averages 175lbs. They are about 3' tall at the shoulder and may be 5'tall standing. They are agile and can run as fast as 35 mph, even up and down hills. As I read sometime ago in the book "Night of the Grizzlies"' that means if you see a bear standing on a ridge line 200 yards away, they can be standing next to you in about 20 seconds. Impressive! And Black bears swim and climb trees reasonably well.
Our introduction to Bear Baiting started with the "Bear Bait Wrapping Party". We were told to wear old clothes so it started rather ominously. That plus the fact that we covered all the tables in the conference room with butcher paper in preparation for the event. We showed up with a dozen or so other volunteers. I should point out that ODFW has many volunteers for different projects. Some of the things that come quickly to mind are habitat restoration of river and field, youth fishing, hunting checkpoints, fishing creel checks, bird banding, bird box making, and monitoring projects of all variety of critters and creatures. In this case there was a mixture of men and women and one child. She may have been 10 or 12(?) and did a very good job. The party started with an explanation of purpose and instructions. As I mentioned this is to determine bear population. That is done by the introduction of tetracycline into the bears system which stains the teeth. The teeth of harvested bears (that's state biologist talk for shot and kilt bears) are turned in by hunters. Then through some mysterious and magical algorithm bear population can be guessed at. We were told we wouldn't understand and I wasn't that interested anyway. It all kind of sounded like throwing darts or a just a plane old WAG (wild ass guess) to me. Definitely ODFW job security. I'm kidding! So! Let the party begin. Our job was to make Bear Bait sandwiches. That is done be wrapping/rolling tetracycline tablets in a strip of bacon; placing nine of these vertically on a slice of bread; topping it with another slice of bread; and then placing that in a mesh bag and closing it with a knot. "Viola!!" A Bear Bait sandwich. Why nine tablets? Another part of that mysterious formula? Or maybe because nine fit and ten wouldn't, or eight is just not enough to attract any self respecting glutton of a bear? Nine it was! As I recall, and Kat confirms it, we (the party) made some 400 sandwiches in three or four hours. We had refreshments if you didn't mind a little pork fat mixed in. Not a job I'd want but it was fun for the experience and, I'd bet lots of money on the fact, I'm the only family member who can say they've done it. And probably ever will do it!
Next came putting out the baits. They are placed all over the state in locals where there are or have been bears. I really have no clue how that is determined. But we put them on private timber and state land. I don't know about federal land , but I'm guessing they are placed there also. It wouldn't be a very accurate count without that. Kat and I went with Doug, the same Doug I mostly worked with. He is a fun and easy going guy and popular with the volunteers, especially for bear baiting. And he is quite knowledgeable about how it goes. So we're off in Doug's great big state pick-up truck to put out some bear bait. Baits are placed in selected areas by use of a Global positioning system, in what I think is a three square mile pattern with the baits being equidistant from each other, nine baits in a pattern. Pretty sure about that. I recall looking at the placement on the exploded GPS view. Nine baits is about all you could do in a day. Getting there is the fun part. We used local maps and GPS but the roads out there in bear country are not that good or reliably mapped. We encountered many gates which most of the time Doug had keys for, sometimes not. There were fallen trees, windblown trees with roots exposed leaving huge holes, boulders, and sometimes roads that ended abruptly in space. That happened once in some heavy fog and it was kind of scary. We determined many times that "you can't get there from here!" We traveled lots of logging roads, in a couple of cases Doug used the CB radio to warn log truckers of our position to avoid being run over. Some roads were nothing more than a pair of ruts, and some just really weren't there anymore. We were always running through lots of vegetation and taking lots of it with us. It was a rough ride, particularly for Kat who was in the back jump seat. But she was short person out, or back, in this case. This was one of those pick-ups where people like me and especially Kat needed a parachute to exit and a ladder to get in. Doug had added a little step stool with a string for pulling it in so that helped Kat some. Still it was difficult sometimes in the rough terrain. Baits are placed in Alder trees when available, about eight feet off the ground. Alders are picked because the claw marks are left making identifying "hit" baits easier. I think? Something like that. But we did have to use other types of trees a couple of times. A 2' long 2" by 4" is nailed to the tree with the mesh bag and bait attached. The idea is that the bait is out of reach of smaller critters and bears have to climb some into the tree making it easy to determine that it was a bear that took the bait and not something else. The baits are left out a week or so and then recovered. We did both but in different areas. Unfortunately, we saw no "hits" in the area that we recovered in. We did see lots of wildlife and beautiful country. At one location where we were placing a bait I thought I saw a bear as we were approaching. It was some distance but it was black and squat and to big for anything else I thought. When we got to the point Doug took a short walk to look around and came back rather sheepishly in a hurry. He said he had heard some 'rustling' in the brush. Based on what I thought I saw he said he was "just being cautious". As it turned out that bait was "hit" by a bear. So I feel justified in thinking that I did see one. And it's kind of neat thinking you saw a bear in the wild. Not something everybody gets to do. All in all it was a very rewarding and fun experience. One of those things you never in your wildest thoughts imagined you would do. And thanks to ODFW, the old "Hook and Bullet", and especially Doug, for allowing it to happen.
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