Bare-handling a Bear
By: Gary Kurz
For one of my many tours in the United States Coast Guard, I was assigned to the staff of the Superintendent, U. S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. One of my collateral responsibilities was serving as Chief of the Academy Special Security Force. My duties included supervising 15 other security personnel in special functions that required crowd and traffic control, parking assistance, automobile searches, funeral details and any other undesirable duties that our regular security force didn't feel like doing, particularly after hours and on weekends.
More frequently than I liked, the special force was needed for non-scheduled, emergency details such as rounding up rival military academy pranksters vandalizing our buildings, removing heavy snow from facility roofs to avoid cave-ins, and escortingvisiting dignitaries and celebrities. Sometimes it was fun; like when Buddy Epson would show up unexpectedly. He served as a reserve officer in the U. S. Coast Guard and sometimes just came onboard without notice. He would usually take a few minutes to stand around and talk with my officers, which was a real treat for them.
But other times special assignments were arduous and unpleasant. One Sunday morning for example, circa 1981, I received a telephone call ordering me to organize my special security force for an immediate emergency assignment. I put our notification chain process into gear ordering everyone to arrive in Service Dress Blues, the uniform of the day, with full security gear and helmets. I had a choice of uniforms and could have toned it down, but it was better to be on the safe side and prescribe the dress uniform in the event we were to provide escort/security for visiting dignitaries.
When I arrived at the Academy, I asked the Officer of the Day (OOD) what the situation was and was told that the Academy mascot, a 110 pound northern black bear, had escaped from his pen. I could not help thinking “So what, let him make his way back into the deep woods.” Unfortunately, the bear was creating havoc in the community surrounding the Academy, turning over trash cans, scaring children and dogs, etc. My mission was to recapture the mascot.
My reaction was predictably “Really, you’re serious…you want me to catch a bear?” The OOD replied “I wouldn’t have called you in if I was not serious.” Good military protocol allows subordinates one “But sir…” and, that failing, we do our duty. I gave it my best shot and explained why I did not feel this type of mission fit into the special security niche. But my reasoning failed to sway his decision, not so much because my argument did not have merit, but because the old axiom of “Well someone has to do it” prevailed.
Needless to say, I was not happy with my assignment. The first problem was that we were going to have to accomplish this task in our very warm, very expensive winter dress uniforms. I do not recall the month at this late date, but I do remember that it was hotter than usual for the time of year that uniform is prescribed for.
The second problem was that the current Academy mascot was not the most friendly of the several mascots I had known over the years. He was not vicious, but he was, shall we say “overly playful”; a real pain in the butt (and I mean that literally as you shall see below).
Knowing that bears usually return to their den after eating, I figured he would come back to the Academy grounds and his cage, or his den if you will. The Academy grounds were the only place familiar to him. Accordingly, I posted people at strategic locations on the campus and made arrangements for lunch to be delivered, believing they would be there for a very long time waiting on the bear. I then formed two squads of four personnel to requisition vehicles and search the area off base where the bear had last been seen.
Luck was with us however, and the squads were not needed. Within a short time, perhaps fifteen minutes, the bear was spotted by one of the officers returning to campus. We organized ourselves by radio and converged on that location, ensuring that we left his path to his cage open, but backfilled personnel behind the bear so that it would not try to exit the campus again.
Almost immediately the bear figured out what our intentions were and broke into an all out gallop toward the football field, which coincidentally was the only direction we had not yet secured. In all fairness, that is the way he probably would have headed anyway as the football field is the area most familiar to campus mascots.
Once there, he made it clear that our mission was not going to be an easy one. With an ease and quickness I had not anticipated, he made fools of us, running in and out of bleachers, back and forth across the field, around the tackling dummies and press box and finally under the bleachers; all the while leaving a string of fallen sailors in dress blues strewn across the field.
I was not sure what to do at this juncture as there weren’t many options available to me. There was little more than crawl space under that particular section of bleachers and it went back quite a ways, perhaps 30 feet. It was also very dark and very dirty. To complicate matters, there were more ways for him to exit his present position than there were bodies to station at those exits, so going in after him was not a good option.
As I contemplated our next move and entertained the unsolicited ideas of my crew (i.e. “We can board up all the holes and leave him there for the cadets on Monday”, “This isn’t what I signed-up for”, and the seemingly most popular“Let’s shoot the little bugger”, I heard a familiar voice call out to me. It was a good friend of mine (I’ll just call him Marty, but that is not his real name) and the only force member I had not been able to locate earlier.
And it was not hard to see why; though it was early in the day, he had been at the enlisted club, which was adjacent to the football field. And he had been drinking. That was okay as he was off duty and what he did on his own time was his own business. But I could not use him; he was "feeling good", a little too good, if you know what I mean.
In his normal jovial, but now slightly inebriated way, he asked with a detectable slur, "Whazzzs going on buddy"? I quickly brought him up to speed on the situation and then, because of his condition added "But we have it under control, why don't you just go relax Marty"?
Believing he would follow my advice, I returned to the problem at hand. Wrong move! And Iknew better; I have been down this road with Marty before. I should never have turned my back on him. I don't know how he did it, but somehow, when I wasn’t looking, my tipsy buddy had managed to wedge his overweight body into the small crawl space under the bleachers and was crawling toward the dark area where we believed the bear to be.
I kneeled down and tried to call him back out, but I knew he would not listen. I didn’t know exactly where he was under the bleachers anyway. I tried to spot him, but I was not able to make anything out with certaintyin the darkness. Our government-issue flashlights were no help either, as they illuminated nothing. But while I could not see, I was able to hear; and what I heard was not good. Breaking the silence was my intoxicated friend calling out loudly "Here kitty, kitty, kitty, come to Marty".
There was the briefest moment of stunned silence and then the entire security force broke out in hysterical laughter at this drunken display of bravado. Marty was always good at doing the unexpected and bringing the house down. We were in stitches and in danger of losing all objectivity, when we were brought back to reality by a loud growl and Marty’s scream. He had found the bear, grabbed its stub tail and the bear had retaliated with a quick bite on the hand.
Almost simultaneously with the scream, that rascal of a bear came darting out from under the bleachers, heading for the lower football field again. His way was partially blocked however, as we had anticipated he might bolt in that direction and had surrounded the immediate area.
But as soon as he realized that he was surrounded, he did what bears do; he scurried up the nearest tree. And as you might guess, it was not one of the smaller trees on campus, but one of the largest.
I silently groaned inside. The situation was really getting chaotic now, for at the same moment the bear was ascending the tree, security officers were starting to rebel at what they considered to be a moronic assignment. Cussing and throwing their helmets on the ground at the bear’s latest tactic, they let me know they were not happy with spending their time off chasing the bear that the cadets, who co-incidentally lived onboard the station, were responsible for.
Fortunately, just before a full-blown mutiny could get underway, state Fish and Game Commission agents arrived on scene. I had summoned them earlier, anticipating that we might need to tranquilize the bear. Their arrival seemed to pacify the security team for the moment.
As they drove up they tooted their horn repeatedly to let us know they had arrived. Aside from being a bit unprofessional, the noise they made caused the bear to climb even higher into the tree. And we won’t even mention the tire tracks that they left on the football field.
Chaotic as the situation had become, at least now we were getting somewhere; these guys would dart the bear and that would be the end of that. Yes, in a perfect world. To my chagrin however, they did have the tranquilizing equipment I had asked them to bring. They explained that they did not have access to it on the weekends.
I wondered why then had they bothered to make the hour long drive from Hartford? Were they bored? Did they just come for the show? Well, it was beginning to look as if they would not be disappointed.
Dismissing all the negative feelings I had, I decided that having them there was better than not having them there. I welcomed their expertise in capturing wild animals. That welcome and my confidence in their expertise wereto be short-lived, however. Their first (and only) plan was one I did not like; and I made sure they knew that. But I had passed them the torch and was willing to acquiesce, at least for the moment.
Briefly, they wanted to shake the bear out of the tree. The plan was for one of them to climb up the tree and tie a rope off at about 20 feet below the 40 foot mark where the bear had decided to perch. The idea was to tie the other end of the rope to their truck and repeatedly throw the truck alternately in drive and reverse shaking the tree back and forth. They, the experts, felt this would scare the bear into coming down, where a dozen people would be waiting for it.
What? This was the best they could come up with? I protested, and, as the person in charge could have insisted they abandon that idea;but they assured me this was a tactic that they had used before and that it always worked. Reluctantly, I temporarily turned the mission over to them and they put their plan into action.
One of them climbed up and tied off the rope on the tree. Then they tied the rope to the bumper of the truck. Everything was going as planned. Maybe there was hope. Then they began rocking the tree back and forth; a short lunge of the truck forward, then throwing the transmission into neutral and being pulled back a bit, then again in drive. It looked like they knew what they were doing.
The tree shook and, amazingly, the bear actually did begin to stir. In fact, he moved down the tree a few foot, obviously nervous over the shaking. A few more shakes and the bear was on his way down. He definitely did not like the tree shaking.
When he reached the 35 foot mark, for whatever reason, he had a change of heart and decided to head back up the tree. The men from the state over-reacted to the bear’s change of plans and hit the gas a little too hard. The tree bent to the point of almost breaking, but fortunately, the rope gave way first.
Did I say fortunately? I meant unfortunately; for the tree, now free from the rope's restraint, was transformed into a catapult. That poor bear was thrown some 15 feet through the air and 40 feet down. I cringed. I thought the little guy was history. In that very brief moment that the bear was airborne, I regretted not following my instincts to countermand the rope idea.
Fortunately (and I meant to use that word this time), to my amazement, the bear was not injured in the slightest. It all happened too fast for me to describe what happened, but he no sooner hit the ground than he was on all fours and off to the races.
He was past me before I could react, but I was right behind him, in full dress uniform with my utility belt, handcuffs and nightstick flopping wildly about. My helmet was bouncing around on my head making me look like a dashboard bobble-head, but I didn’t slow down for a second. Lumbering down a trail through a small patch of woods at the edge of the football field, I chased after that bear all the way down to the softball and soccer fields on the lower campus, which was about a quarter mile.
I was surprised at the speed of this small creature. He was less than 24 inches high on all fours, but his feet seemed to never touch the ground as he flew down the path. I knew bears were fast, but I never suspected they were able to put on bursts of speed like this little guy was.
I was right behind him though, shedding my cumbersome gear and jacket as I ran. I thought by lightening my load I would be able to catch up to him, but that proved to be yet another miscalculation on my part. Despite my lighter load and increased speed, he managed to maintain the same distance between us. I began to think he was toying with me.
He arrived at the lower field ahead of me, but rather than entering the field, he turned south on the railroad tracks that cross the lower campus along the river. This was a break for me because the spaces between the railroad ties proved to be a hindrance to his small gate. So I poured it on and finally managed to pull along side of him.
I threw all my weight into him trying to knock him off the track and getting him to roll. It had little effect on him, but caused me to temporarily lose ground. Regaining my speed, I again came along side him and this time I tackled him. At this point I did not care that my uniform was going to be lost; this had become a battle of wills and I was not going to let this little ball of fur beat me.
We both rolled off the tracks and onto the shoulder of the track. I recovered from the roll faster than he and I pounced on his back. I knew that as a 200 pound weightlifter, I would be able to control this smaller 110 pound youngster with relative ease.
Can you believe it, yet another miscalculation on my part. He got up on all fours with me square on his back and my arms around his neck, and started running toward the nearby cyclone fence. I could not believe the power of this small animal. I dug my feet in the dirt, but I could not stop him.
Fortunately, four other men arrived at that moment and jumped on my back. They had been laboring to catch up to us carrying a large volleyball net they thought might come in handy. Before jumping on my back, they threw this net over the bear (and me of course) and then they all piled on.
We had him now, or so I thought. But that stubborn bear continued moving toward the fence with all five of us on his back. We must have presented at least half a ton of weight, yet he was able to stand and move. He dragged us about a dozen more feet and was only stopped because he tried to crawl under the fence and got his head stuck. Otherwise, I am not sure we would have held him.