Promoting quiet recreation in Wisconsin.
Opposing the coming attempts to sell off Wisconsin's natural heritage.
Fighting denial about climate change. When are we hitting the streets?


Thursday, July 29, 2010

Bear etiquette

I was biking on "Old K" when a mother bear and three (yes, three!) cubs lumbered out onto the road in front of me and just sat there! At one in the afternoon! I went a good ways in the other direction...and tried to get my fingers steady enough to work the cell phone camera's buttons, to no avail. I was a bit shaky. The mother bear and three just sat there for a bit. My bike derailleur and shifters are thirty years old. If the bear decided to go after me, I had enough space that I could have outpedalled it, IF everything worked right. But they soon moved in into the woods, the cubs first. I sat a while, wondering what the official polite time was to wait for the bears to disappear. Was there some sort of human-bear contract about this? It was the kind of etiquette question I really wanted to get right. Or should I just go back and take the long way, on Highway K? I was about to go forward again when another cub, this one scrawny and bedraggled, crossed the road. Geez, this was Day Care for Bears! Sorry, no pictures.

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