Close Encounters of the Ursus Maritimus Kind.

[Ratdog68]

Last Wednesday was a BIG day for us at work. We had a "Mutual Aid Drill" where I work. Meaning... the oil company sponsored and paid for various governmental agencies to come and play out a laundry list of scenarios/disasters. And, it wasn't JUST for THEM to come play... the company was being graded on their response efforts to deal with problems. Basically, it went something like this... the sub-sea pipe bundle burst and started bubbling up crude, and animals were getting oil on them... how would we cope with it to mitigate and respond? We had Coast Guard, EPA, USF&W, AK F&G, AK DEC... in all, about 80 "guests" to come play.

So... there I am, going about my normal routine, when I hear "This is a drill... a sow/cub polar bear have been spotted on our island, covered in oil". Of course... I haven't been told ANYTHING, including "what" I was looking for... plywood cutouts, etc. I see a bundle of white on the beach, next to our WEST boat ramp, but, want to rule out anything else that may be simulating a pair of oiled bears. Besides... this bundle is right where the boat crews will be deploying containment boom, so it may be part of their gear stash. I'll complete my loop of the island, and investigate this further in a couple of minutes.

Rounding a corner of the island, one of the truck drivers is waving his radio at me and frantically pointing to the EAST boat ramp area. Aha !!! My hunch was right, my simulated bears are on THIS side... WTF?!?!?! Nope, I've got the REAL thing in the water right in front of me !!!! 50 feet from shore and putting the CREEP on us !! Now, mind you, this water is only 3 feet deep, and the ONLY things I'm seeing on this bear are his ears/eyes/nose and the top of his snout and forehead !!! And, he's fixing to come ashore right before my very eyeballs ! Well... as it turns out, a loader operator was on the radio screaming for the desk to have me respond, the desk guy was making his list of "who to call on the phone" things happen for the simulation, and realizes there's more than the simulation going on. So, he's hanging up the phone and reaching for the radio when I call in to confirm what's unfolding. LOL I brought the rig I drive onto the boat ramp (facing the bear), and the loader operators (both are CAT 966H) follow me and position on each flank of my rig and drop their bucket/forks. That much mechanical presence was enough to intimidate the bear and he changed course at the last second and headed for the barrier island (150yds away).

Once he was away from the boat ramp, I drove to the NE corner of the island and bail out of my rig with shotgun slung and head to a spot where I can watch him to verify he's not coming ashore just away from the boat ramp. I'm pulling slugs from the saddle and ready to chamber when I see he's still swimming away and to the barrier island. Well... he reached that shore and as he emerged from the water, he just kept emerging, and emerging... OMG... BIG bear !!!

Needless to say, the drill got put on hold while all this was going on, and I kept him in sight until he'd walked the full length of the barrier island and gotten into the water to swim to the next island over. It's pretty cool to see them disappear, then see their entire body as they're riding a breaker and rise up.... vanish again... until they're far enough from shore to have no wave action like that to showcase them.

Otay... paperwork for the REAL thing done, and it's back to the simulated thing. Yup, the initial blobs were my simulated bears, and the game played out, notifications were made, played taxi service for the Federal Fish and Wildlife folks there to do the simulated tranquilizing of the pair... got the on-site equipment over to help load 'em into the boat, and my part of the drill was done.

Me thinks the Good Lord was helpful in causing me to do what I did... had I gotten out of the rig to verify the blobs... I'd've missed this bear coming ashore, and who knows WHAT havoc he'd've wreaked. He was putting the CREEP on and wanted a Happy Meal (worker).

Hey, at least I got a free Solar battery charger out of the deal. LOL

Oh, yeah... I show my pix of the "hybrid" (I'd seen a few days before), and she's trying to tell me it was just a dirty bear that'd been rolling around. Naw, I've seen that behavior. This ol' boy got into the water and SWAM for 100 yds. and emerged from the water the SAME color he was when he got in. This boy had a DARK undercoat and a creamy-white outer guard hair coat. He had a "halo" type of look to him as a result of the two shades of hair at different layers.

 

[histopicker]

Great story Ratdog!

 

[FrankT]

Fun and exciting times in the great wilds of Alaska!

 

[Aspp]

Very cool, kinda spooky thinkin something that size can hide in 3ft of water like that!

 

[Ratdog68]

Very cool, kinda spooky thinkin something that size can hide in 3ft of water like that!

The more I watch them, the more respect I acquire for them, and the more nervous they make my gut feel when they're around. That whole "I'm just lumbering around" plodding gate they have (with their head down) is deceiving. When they're in full on STALK mode, this is an animal to be afraid of. Whether it's this recent behavior I watched while in water, or when they're on a beach (rolling in the soil when they're wet to become THAT color) and laying down to look like a mound and just "wait", or when they're on the pack ice and lay down (putting their paws over their black nose to conceal it) and let the snow drift up on them... add to their intelligence the size and strength they possess? Whew !! Largest land predator in North America, world class in size/strength.

I watched one (20 yrs ago) hang out underneath a building (built on stilts to allow the blowing snow to keep moving, lessen drifting) for a few days. That bear walked under the building with his nose to the floor, and walked a grid... then walked it in the cross ways direction. He then sat down beneath the building , in proximity to the location of the door and waited. He'd get up, peer up through the expanded metal landing at the top of the stairs and look at the door, then settle back down and wait. Can you imagine coming out of a building (thinking of whatever we are busy with) and while going down some steps... having 1,000 lbs of predator hook your ankle from between the steps and start yanking you through until you're wedged... and begin eating you on the spot? PRAYING he'll come around and finish you off so the pain will stop?

I worked the east end of the oil field when this attack happened... http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-02/news/mn-63114_1_polar-bear the ironic part is... the location of this attack is just on-shore from where I NOW work... 3.5 miles away. The rest of the tale as I remember it is, the victim and another worker were sitting in the lounge room of camp when one of them noticed a polar bear peering through the window at them. One of them got up and smacked the window with a magazine to scare the bear off. Pretty soon, he was back, peering through the window at them again. The guy got up again and smacked the window with the magazine. The bear treated the glass like it would a patch of ice by lunging at it with front paws, legs stiffened, and all his weight behind the thrust and shattered the glass. He then crawled in through the window and began mauling the victim. A person down the hallway heard the attack and just happened to have a 12 ga. shotgun in his room. The bear was killed. Half a dozen years later, I was on a road trip with my father to visit family in New Mexico and we stopped in at "Chee's" gift shop on the north side of the freeway (heading back to Phoenix, AZ). I got to chatting with the lady in there, she was a local Navajo. One of the things we talked about was our experiences in Alaska. I told her about the bear attack, she related to me that her brother had served his residency for Indian Health Service in Alaska... and, had performed the necropsy on that bear. Small world. Well... what I recall is pretty close to the tale told here, I hadn't heard this version before... http://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/larry-mueller-and-margueritte-reiss/2007/09/tundra-terror

The mention of the man killed in Pt. Lay three years earlier (in the first link I gave)... I met that man while I was working as a cop in Kotzebue, AK. About a month after meeting him (during a disturbance call I'd responded to), I'd heard he'd been killed by a polar bear. The bear was old/thin, and the guy's arm was recovered from the bear's stomach after it was shot. I too had heard he'd tried to defend himself with only a pocket knife. But, what I'd heard was that he and his girlfriend were out camping when it happened. I'd asked (then), WHO goes camping without a gun??? Apparently, it happened in their village of Pt. Lay.

 

[Froggerzack]

WOW!