September 6
September 6, 2005 (Tuesday)
Last night a wolf was howling again…there’s a woman in the area that has a wolf hybrid and, from as close as the howling was, we’re pretty sure it was her hybrid…but D and I were sitting in the house, Fancy and Usko were out in the camper and we could hear Fancy start to howl…we went outside and heard the wolf howling and got a kick out of hearing Fancy howl back…Usko got a few notes in as well…but Fancy was pretty talkative. So, that was cute!
We hit the hay for the night and woke up at 6 AM to Fancy howling again from the camper. D got up and went to hear what she was howling at and could hear coyotes nearby talking to her. She, again, was having a great time howling with them. D and I lounged in bed for a while and finally got up to run our trap line. No bears. So, after finishing up checking the trap line, we backtracked a bit and put in a new snare at one of the sites that has a trap at it (Spruce Creek) and then went to go and totally change out the bait at the big Red Meadow site. The bait in the cubby snare is covered in maggots and maggots put our an ammonia smell that deters bears…so I removed all of that bait and used up the last of our good bait to replace it all. D checked on the camera he has set up there and we left the site. We went into Polebridge, got lunch, returned to the Palace and ended up falling asleep for a good hour and a half…it was wooooonderful!!
We left again at about 5 PM to run the trap line and make sure our snares were still set for the night (sometimes little animals come in and trip them). We heard a fast signal on the snare we just put in earlier in the day, but I decided that we’d run in to check on our Red Meadow site before going to that one. The Red Meadow trap site is at the base of a huge avalanche shoot and the cover makes it a bit of a worry to go into when you have the heebie jeebies. So, we checked on those snares and both were tripped! I usually don’t like going in on trap sites after about 4 PM because that’s about the time bears get active for the evening…but with both of those snares tripped, we needed to investigate and check on what was going on and re-set if they were tripped. When we pulled up we listened for any sounds and thought we heard something, but it didn’t sound like something huge. So, we got ready to go in and while D was loading rounds into his shotgun, we heard a sound that we both agreed was the sound we would associate with a bear cub. This made us extra cautious about going in and I grabbed Fancy to come in with us.
As it turned out, there was nothing at the snares. Both were tripped, but there was nothing in them. Fancy was pretty excited about being in the area, her nose was to the ground and she was whining a lot. I looked at the tripped snares while D checked the video that had recorded and I heard him go, “It was a sow with cubs!” I thought he was kidding, so I went to see the video, and, sure enough, there was a female with two kids at the site. The snare had already been tripped when she came in, which is really odd, but she took bait and came back again for more! And there was still bait in the cubby when we got there! So, we know she’ll come back! So, I hurried to get the snare back together to catch her when she came back, we had Fancy barking to keep the bears away because now we KNOW that was a cub we heard…they were probably pretty close to the snares when we arrived and Mom probably chastised them to get a move on up the hill as we came in! Wild! I didn’t re-set the second snare because, from where they were coming in, it’s possible a cub would get caught and Mom wouldn’t wander into the cubby snare because she’d be distracted by the caught cub. So, here’s hoping she comes in on the snare tonight!!!!!!!
The other tripped snare at Spruce Creek was nothing…just a transmitter gone funky. We didn’t got to check our third set of snares…no reason…Tim wouldn’t come up anyway.
I’m torn about the video. It’s great to have to know what is coming in on the snares and to know that we might be dealing with a female with two cubs tomorrow if the snare is tripped. At the same time, now I KNOW we have a FEMALE!!! A successfully breeding female…and if she isn’t in the snare tomorrow morning, but the snare is tripped…I’m going to be devastated!
We have to leave the Palace for a night…someone is going to be using it tomorrow…but we can come back in the next night and I think we have access to it for the rest of the month!! But, it’s kind of a pain to have to uproot everything for a night…but it will be good to check emails and make contact with family and such…Tomorrow is D’s mom’s birthday!!