Black bear fasinates local resident
Do any of us really know what a black bear is? He is God’s garbage grinder. In every black bear’s gut there is a fire burning brightly. Just like the fires of compassion that burn brightly in the heart of Jesus Christ, there is a fire burning brightly in the stomach of every black bear from the time it is born until the final hour if its last breath. It cannot change,just as Jesus cannot be other that what he is. They love eating more than anything … more even that sharing sexual contact with a mate, more than hording wealth, more than security and social status among their brethren, more than privileges, pride, vanity … more even than their offspring. Black bears live to eat, eat, eat.
Just as Jesus loves to redeem our souls, to take souls who have gotten too strongly attached to this tortured material existence and save us and return us safely home to Heaven; so, too, every black bear loves to gorge himself, not on souls, but on the highest protein, highest calorie “anything” that happens to be in his environment at the moment.
This feeding passion is such a tremendous experience for the black bear consciousness; so full of joy, happiness and soulful tranquility, that their whole adult lives they dedicate themselves to continuous eating activity.
Like a prayerful Jesus in the Garden of Gesthemene, our feeding black bears, alone and serene in the solitary performance of his divinely-designed purpose in life, attain the highest contentment when their stomachs are satisfied…when their inner fire is at peace.
The bear is fully concentrated, not easily distracted like you and me, and is the animal kingdom’s perfect expression of feeding aggression. And why is he so bent on his task? Why is he so hungry? Because when he is satisfied in his stomach, he attains the blissful state we humans are seeking also – absorbed in wholeness, perfection and satisfaction.
So, why am I out here in the snow and rain stalking the black bear? Why am I armed with an 8-mm rifle whose bullets can penetrate an 8-by-8-inch post? Why do I have a .44-caliber revolver, one of the most powerful handguns in the world, at my hip?
I am here because I am trying to understand and cooperate with God’s plan. Because God has put fear of bears in my heart. I am here because someone has to harvest and constrain this beast before it harvests your pet pooch.
I am out here alone in the deep, dark woods because I am certain that for a few days and hours I must join my fellow barbarians and seek out, track, stalk and harvest a few of these, misunderstood, tick- and lice-infested, wormy, arthritic, hemorrhoid-harboring, highly intelligent and shy creatures who are just like me in the way we each are blindly serving God in the most blessed way – doing what we each are supposed to do, unquestioningly fulfilling our divinely-designed roles in this garden planet’s ecosystem. Oh, the complexity of it all.
We fear the bear because he is physically superior to any of us. Stronger than any man. Pound-for-pound, this 75 percent vegan is twice as strong as any human. No 300-pound NFL cow could subdue any 300-pound black bear. And when the fight is over? You guessed it: a mighty nice mid-day snack for a few weeks is what our loveable football “hog” represents to our bears.
My point is, these powerfully built food geniuses have been helped by our wildlife bureaucrazy to regain their natural/unnatural place in our forest/farm dynamics. Since the late 1940s they have been studied, collared, observed, captured, released, and are slowly, but steadily, achieving a greater dominance in Penn’s Woods.
For those brave souls who want to feel the primal thrill of a lifetime-come and see.
Join me as I stalk and track these powerfully built animals. Anyone who wants to become a legendary folk hero needs only kill one with a sharp knife, alone in the dark.
For the rest of us normal souls? It takes a lot of the kind of confidence only human technology and firepower provides to conquer our fear of superior strength. Every year they infringe closer and closer, losing their natural fear of humans who set out garbage bags full of bear bliss, who spoil the bear’s natural fear of humans by inviting them into our backyards in Hopwood, Fairchance and Dunbar. Closer, closer, closer … until. Our farms and feedlots, our campgrounds and backyard gardens are no longer the once-safe and secure domains we so anxiously demand.
Few people realize that the very individualistic character of each black bear makes him unpredictable and dangerous once he loses the fear of humans.
To a conditioned bear, humans are just another easily caught, overweight, dimwitted, soft, unaware menu item; no more challenging than a lost fawn in distress or a calf lost in the woods.
That is why I am out here being nurtured by our elemental demons. I will not pose with nor mount a bear if I harvest him. If my Lord grants me a clean shot? “One round, one kill. End of game!”
Because we all know in our reasoning hearts that the blind needs of a black bear’s stomach must be kept in balance with the security needs of blind humanity. Amen.
S. Raymond Pohaski resides in Uniontown.