Hungry Bear Recorded On Videotape

A hungry bear, searching for food after a long winter’s nap, wound up in Ruth Scheper’s yard Tuesday morning, eyeing her goats.

The bear stood up on its hind legs and attempted to crawl over a wire-mesh fence into the goat pen in about three places, Scheper said.

“As you can see, he pulled my fence apart,” she said, pointing out deformities in the fence-line from the bear’s weight.

The bear is one of several that have come into populated areas looking for food this spring, said Don Carr, a state Fish and Game officer.

Food is scarcer than usual this spring.

“The vegetation is so late in coming because of the cold spell,” he said. “It’s two weeks later than usual. It’s real hard on bears.”

Scheper is a retired nurse who supplements her income with her small farm of chickens, turkeys and goats on Sunnyside Road east of Coeur d’Alene.

Although she’s lived in the chalet-like home for seven years, Scheper never before had seen a bear on her property. Deer, elk and coyotes are more typical visitors.

So she grabbed her video camera and hurried outside to record the bear’s visit.

The American black bear actually was brown. It stood on a rockpile behind the goat pen and sniffed the air as Sadie, Scheper’s German shepherd, barked. Scheper approached the beast in her bare feet, clucking her tongue.

“C’mon boy, c’mon boy,” she called to it.

When the bear responded by charging, Scheper discarded her camera and ran back toward the house, stepping on her downed electric fence.

“I didn’t even feel it,” she said.

Sadie intervened and received a swat from the bear that sent the full-sized shepherd into the fence.

The bear left, and was spotted by another resident on Silver Road, said Carr, who brought a bear trap to the little farm.

“I tell you, it’s not a Koala bear,” Scheper told Carr when he arrived. The bear had hopped like a kangaroo when it came after her, she told him.

“That’s called a bluff charge, to scare you,” Carr explained.

“He didn’t tell me it was a bluff,” she said.

“If he wasn’t bluffing, he would have got you,” Carr replied.

A second wildlife officer, Brian Allen-Johnson, watched the video and remarked that the bear was aggressive.

“He’s not showing fear at all,” Allen-Johnson said. Charging Scheper and swatting her dog was “real unusual,” he said.

Scheper’s goats were showing plenty of fear. Two disappeared during the ruckus and the others were loathe to leave their small shelter.

They have reason to be scared.

The bear trap is set up a few feet from their pen. At the wildlife officers’ request, Scheper went through her refrigerator in search of bait.

She found a chunk of frozen red meat and some frozen smoked fish. Carr took the meat, two fish and a partial bag of cat food to the trap.

If wildlife officers capture the bear, they’ll take it as far into the backcountry as possible and set it loose. If not, and it continues to be a problem, they’ll track it with hounds and tranquilize it, Carr said.

“People have to be very careful about having any food available” for bears this time of year, Carr said. Cat food, dog food, bird feeders, and “even hummingbird feeders” can attract bears.

“If a bear gets rewarded with anything, they’ll come back.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo