I don't know anything about the context of this but those pictures look so cool
it began late friday evening, an otherwise pleasant day drawn to a close as i walked the quarter-mile path to the barn after work to check on everything and close all the animals up for the night. upon entering the pasture i noticed that most of the animals were outside the barn, a rather unusual behavior as they're all typically waiting inside the barn for me to shut the doors and count heads after the sun is down, though i dismissed it as some of them sometimes do linger just outside the barn at night and i didn't see anything that seemed out of order. after my count came up correct i dismissed the behavior as a fluke, barred the door with a two-by-six plank on the outside as always, and walked back home for a good night's sleep.
while i slept soundly in my cabin a half-mile away that night, i would discover in the morning that my livestock did not rest nearly as well. portions of the pasture fencing were crushed, a reinforced portion of fencing made of pallets screwed to a backing board just outside the barn was destroyed, and the barn door was wide open. two sheep and a goat were missing, ones i had counted among the flock mere hours beforehand. far away along the swampy western border of the pasture lay a small pile of nondescript guts with no other indicators. not seeing any other corpses in the area, we grabbed our shotguns and landed the canoe on a bluff along the southern forest and walked the perimeter westward towards a peninsula along the main body of the pond. at the head of this peninsula there is a large earthen den we spotted six years ago when initially scouting the interior of the property which has up to this point remained unoccupied, but sure enough the half-eaten carcass of one of the missing sheep lay just outside the den with its occupant conspicuously missing in the middle of the day. along the way we found several heaping piles of fresh bear scat and upon a second examination of the broken fencing we found black, wirey hair so we were fairly certain it was a black bear, and this suspicion was confirmed when i discovered that one of my neighbor's dogs was recently attacked by a bear as well. also, while scouting a square mile around the pasture for signs of the scattered flock or other corpses another neighbor told me something that concerned me greatly:
doug, an elderly man with a house a couple miles up the road, died two weeks ago. doug would buy pallets worth of feed corn to constantly leave out for wild animals, including a bear i've seen often. for two weeks there has been no corn for this bear who has become incredibly used to people.
it was especially after considering this aspect that i decided it would be necessary for me to stay in the barn for several nights in order to solve this problem as quickly as possible. there were still no signs of the other two missing livestock but the odds of them still being alive a ways away in the wilderness was vanishingly thin after two nights of no sightings, only on the second day that half-eaten sheep was completely gone. the bear would want more soon enough, but the following day was monday and i work second shift so after keeping watch on the pasture all morning i would have to return to the barn at night to continue keeping watch over the night. i took my shotgun with me and kept it at the trailer along the road while i was at work, eight hours later i returned at around 11pm in the pitch darkness. while it was just waning from a full moon, the clouds were thick and none of her light shone through.
grabbing my shotgun and a headlamp i began down the quarter-mile trail back to the barn with a round in the chamber and the safety off, loudly calling out periodically so as to not startle the bear if he was lingering in the tall grass. all seeemed well until i entered the pasture from the far west side and saw plenty of eyes staring back at me from around the barn, and crossing the bridge into the main paddock the whole flock ran up to me silently, clearly spooked. the near wall of the barn had a panel busted out laying on the ground and the sound of loud rummaging from inside pierced the silence of the night like a knife. i led the whole flock back to the trailer and put them inside, noticing much to my dismay there was one less sheep than there was this morning. not wanting to corner the bear inside alone, i recruited gabe who grabbed his semi-automatic twenty-gauge shotgun and we began quietly running back down the trail to the barn.
upon crossing the bridge to the main paddock gabe stuck to the right while i veered left towards the barn wall, and a large pair of eyes stared back at us from a tree, unmoving. gabe yells "that's him!" and fires his first shot, at which point his shotgun immediately jams and will not clear. his head lamp also stops working, and mine is too dim to make out the actual silhouette of the bear. flustered, i began firing roughly towards where those two big eyes were staring back at me from and immediately he dislodged from the tree, belting out a viscious and gutteral growl followed by deep snarling. it appeared at first when he was on the ground that he was attempting to charge us, but he could not walk straight towards us and faltered to the side, and on the third shot from me he began convulsing on the ground while still loudly snarling until on the fourth shot he was silent, still wriggling and writhing on the ground though no longer consciously. i handed gabe my gun to finish him off while i ran up into the hay loft to grab the remaining slugs in case they were necessary for whatever reason, but fortunately there was nothing left to fire at. a three hundred pound bear carcass now lay warm and unmoving in the middle of the field. as it turns out, one of the first shots either hit him in the shoulder or leg, and when he fell out of the tree he broke the other leg so his mobility was immediately hampered at the beginning of the encounter. if it were not for that, we may have been in much more trouble.
none of the geese or ducks were touched. the chicken coop was completely fine. the barn cat was skulking around meowing at us, perfectly fine. there were no corpses or blood anywhere around the barn, but the missing sheep was nowhere to be found. after sitting around the corpse for a while winding down and reflecting on what just happened, we gathered the flock from the trailer and all the birds and got them all back into the barn, i repaired the missing wall, and i sat in the hay loft on my cot until about three in the morning just thinking about everything that just happened.
the missing sheep did not return in the morning. it was peaceful. again i stared at the dead bear, almost expecting something to happen, but there was nothing. all the livestock, bird and beast, continued their usual routines as if absolutely nothing had happened at all. gabe came, we dragged the body out of the pasture, then discussed what to do with the body. we decided that he would skin and cure the pelt today and i would cut the paws and head off tomorrow, the former to embalm and the latter to bury and dig up in a six seasons after only the skull is left. the dogs and cat will eat the meat over the next few days. i don't think we're going to use the pelt as a rug geb, though it will be displayed somewhere in the barn as a trophy. it would be really cool to make some sort of cloak out of it because it really is a huge pelt, but i don't think we've refined our methods of tanning to use for clothing.
in total we are missing three sheep and a goat. we have found one corpse, the sheep aforementioned, and no others. while it is possible the rest may have just scattered far off, i very seriously doubt we will see them again. as glad as i am that we were able to solve this problem quickly, i am just as equally sullen that in two attacks our entire herd was so thouroughly decimated. the rough cost of all livestock currently missing is about $1,400.
while i slept soundly in my cabin a half-mile away that night, i would discover in the morning that my livestock did not rest nearly as well. portions of the pasture fencing were crushed, a reinforced portion of fencing made of pallets screwed to a backing board just outside the barn was destroyed, and the barn door was wide open. two sheep and a goat were missing, ones i had counted among the flock mere hours beforehand. far away along the swampy western border of the pasture lay a small pile of nondescript guts with no other indicators. not seeing any other corpses in the area, we grabbed our shotguns and landed the canoe on a bluff along the southern forest and walked the perimeter westward towards a peninsula along the main body of the pond. at the head of this peninsula there is a large earthen den we spotted six years ago when initially scouting the interior of the property which has up to this point remained unoccupied, but sure enough the half-eaten carcass of one of the missing sheep lay just outside the den with its occupant conspicuously missing in the middle of the day. along the way we found several heaping piles of fresh bear scat and upon a second examination of the broken fencing we found black, wirey hair so we were fairly certain it was a black bear, and this suspicion was confirmed when i discovered that one of my neighbor's dogs was recently attacked by a bear as well. also, while scouting a square mile around the pasture for signs of the scattered flock or other corpses another neighbor told me something that concerned me greatly:
doug, an elderly man with a house a couple miles up the road, died two weeks ago. doug would buy pallets worth of feed corn to constantly leave out for wild animals, including a bear i've seen often. for two weeks there has been no corn for this bear who has become incredibly used to people.
it was especially after considering this aspect that i decided it would be necessary for me to stay in the barn for several nights in order to solve this problem as quickly as possible. there were still no signs of the other two missing livestock but the odds of them still being alive a ways away in the wilderness was vanishingly thin after two nights of no sightings, only on the second day that half-eaten sheep was completely gone. the bear would want more soon enough, but the following day was monday and i work second shift so after keeping watch on the pasture all morning i would have to return to the barn at night to continue keeping watch over the night. i took my shotgun with me and kept it at the trailer along the road while i was at work, eight hours later i returned at around 11pm in the pitch darkness. while it was just waning from a full moon, the clouds were thick and none of her light shone through.
grabbing my shotgun and a headlamp i began down the quarter-mile trail back to the barn with a round in the chamber and the safety off, loudly calling out periodically so as to not startle the bear if he was lingering in the tall grass. all seeemed well until i entered the pasture from the far west side and saw plenty of eyes staring back at me from around the barn, and crossing the bridge into the main paddock the whole flock ran up to me silently, clearly spooked. the near wall of the barn had a panel busted out laying on the ground and the sound of loud rummaging from inside pierced the silence of the night like a knife. i led the whole flock back to the trailer and put them inside, noticing much to my dismay there was one less sheep than there was this morning. not wanting to corner the bear inside alone, i recruited gabe who grabbed his semi-automatic twenty-gauge shotgun and we began quietly running back down the trail to the barn.
upon crossing the bridge to the main paddock gabe stuck to the right while i veered left towards the barn wall, and a large pair of eyes stared back at us from a tree, unmoving. gabe yells "that's him!" and fires his first shot, at which point his shotgun immediately jams and will not clear. his head lamp also stops working, and mine is too dim to make out the actual silhouette of the bear. flustered, i began firing roughly towards where those two big eyes were staring back at me from and immediately he dislodged from the tree, belting out a viscious and gutteral growl followed by deep snarling. it appeared at first when he was on the ground that he was attempting to charge us, but he could not walk straight towards us and faltered to the side, and on the third shot from me he began convulsing on the ground while still loudly snarling until on the fourth shot he was silent, still wriggling and writhing on the ground though no longer consciously. i handed gabe my gun to finish him off while i ran up into the hay loft to grab the remaining slugs in case they were necessary for whatever reason, but fortunately there was nothing left to fire at. a three hundred pound bear carcass now lay warm and unmoving in the middle of the field. as it turns out, one of the first shots either hit him in the shoulder or leg, and when he fell out of the tree he broke the other leg so his mobility was immediately hampered at the beginning of the encounter. if it were not for that, we may have been in much more trouble.
none of the geese or ducks were touched. the chicken coop was completely fine. the barn cat was skulking around meowing at us, perfectly fine. there were no corpses or blood anywhere around the barn, but the missing sheep was nowhere to be found. after sitting around the corpse for a while winding down and reflecting on what just happened, we gathered the flock from the trailer and all the birds and got them all back into the barn, i repaired the missing wall, and i sat in the hay loft on my cot until about three in the morning just thinking about everything that just happened.
the missing sheep did not return in the morning. it was peaceful. again i stared at the dead bear, almost expecting something to happen, but there was nothing. all the livestock, bird and beast, continued their usual routines as if absolutely nothing had happened at all. gabe came, we dragged the body out of the pasture, then discussed what to do with the body. we decided that he would skin and cure the pelt today and i would cut the paws and head off tomorrow, the former to embalm and the latter to bury and dig up in a six seasons after only the skull is left. the dogs and cat will eat the meat over the next few days. i don't think we're going to use the pelt as a rug geb, though it will be displayed somewhere in the barn as a trophy. it would be really cool to make some sort of cloak out of it because it really is a huge pelt, but i don't think we've refined our methods of tanning to use for clothing.
in total we are missing three sheep and a goat. we have found one corpse, the sheep aforementioned, and no others. while it is possible the rest may have just scattered far off, i very seriously doubt we will see them again. as glad as i am that we were able to solve this problem quickly, i am just as equally sullen that in two attacks our entire herd was so thouroughly decimated. the rough cost of all livestock currently missing is about $1,400.
that is freaking sick call me up there the next time you go bear hunting
gabe's gun jamming right in the moment sounds pant-shittingly scary. i'm glad you're both fine.
really unfortunate about your neighbor leaving food out all willy-nilly making it so the bear wasn't averse to humans.
really unfortunate about your neighbor leaving food out all willy-nilly making it so the bear wasn't averse to humans.
first in a long series of vids regarding how i've handled managing the collision of my lofty ideals with cold reality over such a time, this first one being about money