Recognize Bear Sounds and Scat – It Could Save your Life!

Hha, Hha, Hha!! Unsettling squeals startle me out of the deep sleep I always enjoy when spending the night in a tent.  I am car-camping this weekend, in the (now broken) peace of pine-scented Kananaskis Country.  

Hha, Hha, Hha!! A man in distress? The sound is moving too fast.  A dog choking on a bone? Maybe. But would it have so much energy to run so fast and cry so loud for so long?

The squeals are now fading much further down the road, and it is too late to intervene. What to do anyway? Torn between guilt for not reacting faster and perplexity on what I could have done at all, I keep listening, hoping someone else will rescue the mysterious creature. Hoping for an end to my guilt and to the creature’s distress.

Car horns beeping frantically on several campsites add to my puzzlement as these are usually used to chase bears away and it does not make sense in the circumstances.

I slip out of the tent armed with bear spray, just in case. Perfect timing, as a Park Ranger truck has just stopped by my site. The Ranger points at …. copious bear scat a couple of meters from my car.

‘This is Mommy bear, he says. She came up to see if the berries are ripe and left the two little ones behind.  She does that often these days and dumps them somewhere on the way and they don’t like it. They were calling for her. All is good now, they are all back together at the lower campground, the one that is shut because of them’.

Phew! A bit unsettled that Mommy bear chose my campsite to leave a calling card, with only the car between her and the tent, I get the stove out for a comforting coffee.  

Hha Hha Hha!!! Never would I have guessed that this is how bear cubs call their Moms. This got me interested in bear calls. Here is something a bit similar to what I heard but the cubs must have been grizzlies or a bit older as the sound was lower-pitched and harsher : black bear cub in distress. More can be found on the site of the North American Bear Center.

The scat was tubular, early season stuff, fed by vegetation. In the late summer when the bears gorge with berries their scat is flatter and looser, very dark and full of berries.