With all the grizzly
bear issues in this area, there has been some unforeseen incidents. Grizzly
bears are opportunistic omnivores, meaning they eat whatever they find
available. They are led by a highly sensitive nose to whatever may become their
next dinner. That nose can take them five miles across country and even
eight feet down to find a buried animal carcass. Grizzlies’ digging skills
put a badger to shame. You think riding into field full of badger holes is
bad; an area where a griz has dug gophers and field mice looks like a war
zone. They have excavation down to a T.
This last spring, in a
Rocky Mountain Front Hutterite Colony, an elder passed away. There were
two solemn days of a wake where High German songs filled the air until past midnight. A
lengthy four hour service was read to the congregation as they sat on wooden
benches. Then came a slow procession on foot to the cemetery at the edge of the
colony housing, where the homemade wooden casket was lowered into the hole that
had been prepared. The first few shovelfuls of dirt were tossed on and
tears were shed. Loud, wailing High German prayers that carried centuries of
history were repeated. The dirt was dumped in from the back of the farm truck
and the group slowly left for their meal and fellowship.
The colony woke up
Sunday morning and looked out their windows to see dirt flying. An old bore
griz was in the process of excavating the gravesite. Farm boss and a
pick-up hazed him away. They replaced the dirt. Old women were horrified
and men were angered.
Monday morning again
proved that the soft loose dirt and smell of dinner had lured the bear back to restart
his excavation. Fortunately the bear did not get the prize. An electric fence
was erected until the alluring smell that only the grizzly could appreciate
with his sensitive nose was dissipated.
I can find humor in
the story, but if it was my mother or family I too might be angered, not
just at the digging but because the grizzly was in the farmstead, only a few
hundred yards from children’s homes and school.
