Wednesday, January 25, 2006
As part of my ceaseless efforts to provide you with full bear coverage:
“It’s pretty intelligent when you can tell a bear, ‘I love you, come give Momma a kiss*,’ and that bear comes right over and gives you a smack on the lips.”
from the LA Times:
Two years ago the Perketts were out in a stand of wind-fallen forest, harvesting downed trees with chain saws. For nine days they could hear the plaintive wailing of a black bear cub.
Figuring the animal was abandoned, the Perketts rescued the female cub and named her Windfall, after the trees they were slicing up.
Their bouncing ball of black fur grew fast and became part of the family, an offbeat adoptee for the two men. The Perketts insist they never really had possession of the bear. It was more as though she came home for a visit and never left.
Windfall had free rein of their spread and the vast woods behind it, coming and going as she pleased. The Perketts insist the bear was never chained up or locked in a cage. Their ursine guest learned to open the house’s doors and often closed them behind her.
“Is there any law against a bear running around your yard?” wonders the father. “The whole two years, as far as I know, it wasn’t against the law to have a bear.”
Hers was a pampered life. At the kitchen table they shared pizza, Dr Pepper and cookies. She would wade into the river to bathe. Sometimes she’d join Jonathon for a shower, and occasionally she’d sleep in his room. She’d wrestle the men out front, or sit on their laps on the sofa.
“She was like a child,” Rocky said. “There’s things bears can do you can’t believe. It’s not like a dog. It goes way beyond that…”
*My only question: which of the two fellas that took care of her called himself “Momma?”
