Nuts and Seeds

Sunday early afternoon I received a 911 call from a very upset lady who was lounging by herself in the hot tub on her back deck when a black bear walked up the stairs. The bear was between the hot tub and the door to her house. This is an excellent example of when it is appropriate to call 911.

The bear came to collect what bears in these parts collect: food in the form of bird seed from the woman's bird feeder.

For future reference: Wild birds don't need fed. The only reason to have a bird feeder is to attract birds to your property. If you live in bear country you are also going to attract bears. My advice to anyone who has a bird feeder and access to non-suburban Alaska might as well smear themselves with bacon grease and go for a hike.

Back to the lady in the tub. I got the call in quickly and then kept her on the phone. Luckily the bear was much more interested in the seeds than it was in the lady (apparently the Human Soup didn’t smell 'done' yet). The bear eventually knocked the bird feeder off of the deck onto the grass below and then went down to find it. This gave the caller the opportunity to splish-splash her way quickly inside her residence.

We both had a good laugh at that point. I advised her to lock her door. In retrospect I'm not sure why. Bears, having no pockets or opposable thumbs, don't usually carry lock picking equipment. Oh well, better safe than sorry. I cancelled the call for officers to respond because there was no longer anyone in danger and the police have only one answer to bear: gun. No one likes that solution.

In the last seconds of the call she suggested that she'd need to eventually clean up the seeds. I mentioned that the bird feeder had outlived its welcome and that, if it were me, I'd need to clean up the hot tub.