Defending chickens against the abundant wildlife is an exercise in futility.
We quickly learned that when it comes to having chickens out in the woods along the river, free-range equals free-lunch. So we built them a chicken yard, five foot high walls, with a footer of quarter-inch metal cloth (nothing fatter than an earthworm can pass through it). This proved satisfactory for a while, but the raccoons and the opossums outsmarted us. They learned that they could climb over the fence to get at the chickens. And then I learned that some chickens can fly, and a five foot wall won’t protect stupid from its own stupidity. So I built Fort Cluck, An impenetrable fortress wrapped in chicken wire, closed even to the sky. Nothing got in or out without my say so.
Then the black bear came.
He didn’t need my permission. He didn’t even need to use the door. He just stood up on his hind legs, pushed his front paws into the chicken wire, and leaned in. His two hundred-fifty pounds snapped the inadequate chicken wire: Fort Cluck had been breached. The bear didn’t even eat them. Not really. He just played with them like a cat torments a mouse. Then after he left, the patient raccoons and opossums moved in to finish the wounded survivors. This is all conjecture, the slaughter having occurred under the cover of darkness. But the proof of it was everywhere come morning.
Lamenting the loss of our valued egg-makers, we disposed of the fallen. That evening, when Roger (my father-in-law) went out back for a cigarette, he saw the black bear standing on the back porch, reaching his paw into the bag of catfood. When he saw my in-law, the bear bolted for the river. The next morning, I heard thumping on the front porch. Peeking through the front window, I saw a massive black butt. I cracked the door an inch, cried, “Get out of here!” and slammed it shut, hoping to God black bears couldn’t punch through windows or knock down doors.
I secured all the pet food bags in the toolshed, where they could be locked away. Dog- and cat-food dishes were to be put in the shed as well come evening. We knew the bear had come for the food, and so we figured that if we cut it off, it wouldn’t have any reason to stay.
A black bear typically claims a territory of approximately four hundred square miles. We hoped it would take the hint. Move on, Black Bear. Not long after we started putting up the animal food at night we noticing bear paw prints along the drive. And everyone on Prism Drive found their trashcans upended, the contents of plastic bags strewn between the trees.
What more did it want? The prospect of an animal that large lurking in the woods terrified my children, who were now afraid to play out in the front yard without parental protection. My son asked on several occasions if my .243 could kill a bear, and I told him it would, though secretly I had no idea. Even my dog Zoey, who prides herself in barking off deer or warning us of vehicles on the drive, had become skittish. She wouldn’t even sit under the front porch, one of her favorite lounging spots. She simply sat by the front door, looking out at the world sadly, as if something precious to her had been lost.
Recently another oddity had started occurring. Bits of insulation were blowing up through the floor vents whenever we used the heater. That had never happened before, so I sought advice down at the lumber yard. The good ol’ boys down there probably laugh behind my back at the breadth of my ignorance, but they’re full of generations of wisdom. Said Jeff, a kindly middle-aged man behind the counter:
“Seein’ insulation blow up through the vents? Tell me, you got any openings into your crawlspace big enough for you to crawl through?”
“Of course.”
“Any of ‘em open right now?”
“Yes.”
“An’, has you seen any sign of bears around your place lately?”
“…yes.”
He shook his head. “Looks like you got a bear campin’ under your house.”
“Uh…”
“Here’s what you do,” Jeff went on, after they all enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. “Don’t mess with them live traps the Fish ‘n Game’ll sell you on. You take yerself some ol’ rags. Whole bunch. Tie ‘em up to trees, porch railin’s, you name it. Make sure you got lots of ‘em, an’—”
“Make sure they’s ‘em blue shop towels. Bears hate that color,” interjected Riley, sitting in a store-demo rocking chair (yes, they sell those at the lumberyard, too).
“Don’t you listen to him,” said Jeff. “Boy don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.”
“Just make sure they ain’t no red towels,” said Riley, nodding to Jeff.
Jeff thought about that a moment, then said, “He’s right. Don’t use no red towels.” This is how it is down at the lumberyard. “Now, you gotta douse ‘em rags with ammonium, douse ‘em good an’ all. Bears hate that shit more’n a foot long dingle berry.”
I thanked them for the advice. An elderly man named Tony followed me away from the counter as I went in search of the ammonium. He was a retired machinist who specialized in making beautiful wood furniture—he gave my daughter a little rocking chair one year. He said, “That ammonium, it’ll work, but not for good. Bear’ll be back. What you gotta do is this: when you see him, you take a .22 and shoot him in the gut.”
I try not to preach ahimsa, so I merely nodded as he went on:
“Shoot him with the .22 in the gut—get him anywhere else, an’ you’ll just piss him off. Shoot him in the gut. He’ll run. Probably get four, five miles before he bleeds to death. Then nobody’s the wiser.”
I was aghast. While I recognized that having a black bear hanging around our homestead wasn’t the best idea, I wasn't fond of the idea of killing him slowly. We didn’t move into the woods to eradicate the elements of the wilderness simply because they proved inconvenient. I was much more in favor of the ammonium idea than this new shoot-him-in-the-gut-and-let-him-suffer-elsewhere angle.
I thanked Tony, promised him I’d let him know how it went, and bought a jug of ammonium. So be it if our yard smelled like urine for a few days.
The thought of a bear living under the house was not a comfort, especially as we were getting ready for bed. My son, who routinely feared monsters in the closet, inquired if the bear would burst through the floor to get inside the house. I'm pretty sure that image will stay with him, buried deep, only to reemerge twenty years hence in some therapy session...
A few weeks after the black bear moved on, I ran into Tony in town. He discretely inquired into how that little black bear problem panned out. He seemed put off, as if it were a personal affront that I had chosen to disregard his sagely advice. With a grunt, he said,
“You ain’t seen the last of him.”
