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Tip o' the Day

There's a difference between grizzly bears and mountain lions. No, I'm not talking about their obvious physical properties; I'm referring to tactics appropriate in an encounter with each animal.

According to all the latest research, in a sudden encounter with a cougar (mountain lion), you can throw out much of what you've learned about responding to grizzly bears in similar situations.

If you discover a big cat in close proximity, never play dead; it's the worst thing you can do! Don't even so much as crouch. Instead, stand tall. Spread your jacket or shirt to appear larger--cougars can be intimidated by size.

Conversely, appearing larger to the fearless grizzly bear may make him feel threatened and trigger a violent reprisal. Playing dead with the same animal may, so it is said, lead the bear to conclude you pose no threat. Playing dead with a mountain lion, on the other hand, can lead the big cat to view you as a ready-made table delicacy.

Never turn you back on a cougar. They usually attack from the rear.

Do not jog alone in cougar country. There is evidence a cat's predatory instincts can be triggered by running humans who unwittingly mimic actions of the big felines' normal prey (several joggers have been attacked, each while jogging alone along isolated foothill roads and trails).

If you encounter a lion, all advisories tell you not to panic or make quick movements. Most tell you, also, to talk calmly to the cat, while backing slowly away.

Many of the same printed materials says never make direct eye contact; that "mountain lions may perceive eye contact as a threat." But I don't buy that one. Most info sheets will also tell you to avoid eye contact with a grizzly bear, and THAT I feel prudent--I don't want him to feel threatened. But if a cat can be threatened, and I already feel threatened, I want him to join the crowd.

I like the information released by the British Columbia Ministry of Environment: "If a cougar is advancing toward you, make a lot of noise by yelling and screaming. Use a club or stout stick to poke at him while continuing to make noise. Back away."

Everybody says "don't panic." One state advises you to "talk calmly" while one province advises "yelling and screaming." Of course, telling a person not to panic while a cougar is advancing with visions of pot roast is akin to saying,"don't get pimples." And advising one to talk calmly is probably appropriate advice for lion tamers, but hardly suitable for a computer programmer from New Jersey who's out for a day stroll in Glacier Park.

Yelling and screaming sounds like better advice; it sounds as if it's a pearl of wisdom I would find easy to follow. Was I lucky, it might even come out as something more than a whimper.

I have just finished The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou. Wow! It was wonderful! I was transported from my stateroom aboard a destroyer to the wilderness I roamed as a teenager. Your tales were well told, enlightening and dead on the money. The open ocean on a calm clear night is beautiful, but I'll never hear the hoarse bellow of a rutting bull. Driving a warship from the bridge into heavy seas and tailing green water is exhulting, but not nearly as much as stumbling across grizzly tracks that haven't begun to fill in. Thank you for sharing with me. My dad sent me the Thursday Great Falls Tribune, no matter where I am in the world for the last 13 years. I have always enjoyed your writing, but this book was special.

PERILS OF SPRING BREAK UP

Newly arrived in Montana from balmy Southwestern Oregon, I'd never experienced spring break up until our driveway switched overnight from a hundred feet of hardpacked snow and ice to enough sloppy mud to warrant calling in a Bailey Bridge from the Army Corps of Engineers

It was upon our arrival during Thanksgiving weekend, that I'd told my wife, at the time Jane (still is), "Under no circumstances are we buying a place until we've lived in Montana long enough to get a feel for the lay of the land."

It was while we decorated the kids Christmas tree that she murmured, "It makes no sense to rent. We would be better off putting equity into our own home. Perhaps a few acres, a calf." Recognizing she needed a sweetener for the deal, she added, "Perhaps a horse or two."

I demurred. "Be reasonable, woman. With snow blanketing the land, we couldn't even see what kind of place we would be buying."

She moved to the kitchen to rattle pots and pans at the sink. "Aren't you the one who says he can't live in town?"

Firmness seemed appropriate: "Jane, we are not buying a place now, and that's that!"

Within a week the woman found an old farmhouse and fifteen acres located only five miles from the mill where I worked. Utilizing feminine wiles (with which every woman is equipped upon popping from the womb) she talked me into looking at the place. We signed the papers within a week and two weeks after that, the first day of March, our move was complete. A warm breeze blew steadily from the southwest. We both felt like dancing!

Go to bed with a driveway of slush, wake up to the Mississippi Delta after Moto-Cross Championships were held there. "Oh my God!" I moaned. My worst fears about buying a place without seeing the kind of ground it contained was realized: we held title to the Okefenokee! I wheeled to Jane (who cowered in a corner). "What, in God's name will happen when it rains?"

Fully expecting alligators to nip at my hinder, I darted for a telephone to order dumptrucks loaded with gravel. Before they arrived, the Okefenokee mysteriously dried and our driveway converted to the hardpacked sand that is its regular summer plumage.

Such was our introduction to Montana's annual spring break up. There've since been three-and-a-half dozen others, and counting. We still live in the same old ranch house, our horses grazed in a pasture made lush with fertile glacier-deposited sandy loam, and I've no cause to complain of a wife who, when it really counts, makes a career out of bypassing rules laid down by the Lord and Master.

Knowing spring break up is coming is a big advantage, of course. I learned to prepare for the coming sea of mud--the three or four days when melting snow water cannot yet penetrate frozen ground. While freeze-up was still in place, hay was stacked where it was readily accessible, then parceled to ponies who were content to spend most of their days standing in newly borning sunshine.

During the muddiest times, groceries are stockpiled ahead and we park vehicles by the highway rather than brave driveway mud, even with four-wheel drives squatting in the garage. It's not so much that we cannot get in and out, as it is that we simply prefer not to have our driveway rutted up during that muddy season.

It's a good time, spring break up. Jane and I turn relatively dormant during the short period until melting water can penetrate frozen ground.

Montana is different in other ways, too. Viva la difference!

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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