More on Snakes and Bears

Its the Wet Spring...


Crotalus Horridus.

SWAC Girl Has Some Thoughts [click to read] on the 'Snakey Spring' we've been having. You always see more of them when it starts to turn warm. They sit out on rocks to 'warm up.' Well, this Spring has been an extended cool rainy season so you are really seeing more 'warm ups' by these cold-blooded reptiles.

Black Rat Snakes have been showing up around the house a lot. My lovely wife does not like snakes so I am frequently seen carrying one away to 'relocate' it. I really don't know how effective 'relocating' snakes is as they seem quite capable of 'unrelocating' themselves. I suspect I've moved some of the same snakes multiple times.

Not that I mind. Black Rat Snakes eat rodents. Thus I consider them allies. Relocation simply saves them from becoming victims of 'friendly fire' i.e. my spouse with a garden tool.


Ursus Americanus.

Black Bear are Active Too [click to read]. Usually they don't bother pets but I suspect domestic goats taste just like the newborn fawns they occasionally eat in the wild.

Black Bears are the wilderness equivilent of a high school cross-country team showing up at the local buffet. They eat everything in sight. Bears are omnivores, meaning they eat everything that isn't nailed down. If you live on the edge of the woods and decide to feed birds, bears love to pull down the feeders and eat the seed in them. Your grill, if you don't burn it off well, becomes another object of interest. We won't even discuss houshold garbage beyond the obvious.

Bears are blessed with one of the finest noses in the animal kingdom. They're way more sensitive than even beagles! If you leave it out, they will find it. Or, consider the poor fellow who left a donut in his construction truck only to find the window broken the next morning. A bear smelled the donut and the rest is history. Game and Inland Fisheries uses Dunk'in Donuts in their pipe trap as bait. It works!