Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Are bears moving north into the McCamey – Iraan area?
June 27, 2007

Black bear were once found in the breaks east of the Llano Estacado (Palo Duro, Blanco, and Tule Canyons.) In the last decade bears have been repopulating the southern Stockton Plateau. A recent visitor to the Sibley Nature Center reported seeing a bear at the bridge over the Pecos River south of McCamey, but unfortunately had not had a camera to document the sighting. I told her I figured it was a lone male wandering around, but there was a chance that the population was continuing to move north. After she left, the memory of the sounds of drums came unbidden.

Despite their size, black bear do not particularly scare me. Grizzly bear do, but I have only journeyed to their range a few times. I camped in black bear country 200+ nights in my younger years and only saw them a dozen times. The first experience was the scariest, for I was only 16 and had stupidly kept some of my food in my tent. A bear’s snuffling had awakened me, but it left when I began hollering. I was lucky that time – it must not have been too hungry.

The memory of the drums brought the memory of a dream about bears the night of the drums and singing. Were my neighbors singing a bear song at moment I awoke that night? I would like to believe so. The synchronicity would be “magical.” I believe that such wonderful and mysterious coincidences are blessings, gifts of God, and a form of affirmation

That night of drums and singing began at a place where were old ruins crumbled – the ruins of the Mogollon culture. I had journeyed to the heartland of the culture because Mogollon style artifacts have been found on the western edge of the Llano Estacado. I was spending time soaking in a hot spring under a narrowleafed cottonwood whose leaves glistened with a maple-sweet aromatic oil. Their bark is white, and old branch scars spot the trunks with “arching eyebrows.” One branched tapped another, providing a backbeat to the music of the river below it.

Acorn Woodpeckers in clown suits chased each other, whooping and hollering like children at play. A Black Pheobe hovered over the river, then subdued a bloodred Orthemis dragonfly in the flickering shadows of the tree. A terrestrial garter snake struck at a cricket frog, who squeaked in surprise as the snake grabbed him. The snake swam to the edge of a quiet backwater to enjoy his meal. An overly loud cicada whined, seeming to announce that a rapidly growing thunderhead had reached a critical point.

For a long time I stretched out chin-deep in the warm waters of the hot spring. American Ravens began a yelling contest. Each sat in separate trees along the river 200 yards apart. At first they called and answered, but soon I realized they were “passing messages” up and down the river – I could hear at least 5 and thought I heard more. After the cascading message passed up and down the river twice all of the ravens screeched and squawked at once. Four swooped to the ground and danced in agitation, wings whomping each other. One whirled away with the others in pursuit.

Earlier I had been watching a large fish hover just below a rock dam someone had built across the river. The river was no more than a foot deep and only 20 feet across, for I was only 10 miles from its headwater spring. Just below the hot spring it joined another branch of the river at the bottom of mountain canyons hundreds of feet deep. The canyon walls were not sheer, but were steep, and the very top of the canyons was out of sight. Finally I decided I should help the fish. I got out of the water and began tearing down the dam.

I was distracted from my work by the arrival of four American Indians. One was middle-aged, and the others were young men about 20 years of age. We nodded at each other and the older man asked what I was doing and when I told him I was helping the fish go upriver, he looked at the others. Without another word, they began helping me. As I struggled to lift a large stone, I slipped on a slick cobblestone and fell into the water. We all laughed as I popped back out of the water sputtering. In a few minutes the job was done, and I walked to my pack to get a dry set of clothes. The sun was hidden by the thunderhead and a cool breeze chilled me. I went behind a bush and changed clothes.

When I came back the older man pointed at my open notebook on a rock near my pack. “You have been dreaming about bears, I see.” Before my soak in the hot spring I had been working on a story about seeing a pygmy owl and then being scared by a bear. After the encounter with the bear, I had dreamed of the bear, and my notebook had been open to the part about the dream.

“This whole trip has been about bears. I’ve seen bears three times – in the Sacramentos, in the Chiricahuas, and in the mountains south of Tucson.” He did not ask about the sightings, but did answer by saying, “Maybe you will dream about bears some more. Some of our songs tonight will be about bears.” He gestured at the others, who brought drums of their backpacks. One of the men began building a fire. I gathered up my belongings and returned to my camp not far away. The rain never came, although thunder grumbled for an hour or more. It did rain upstream, for more water began flowing in the river. Its level rose six inches during the hour of thunder. When darkness became complete, the drums began.

My dream that night was a replay of one of the times that I had seen a bear during that pilgrimage to rock art sites, cliff dwellings, and “strongholds” of past peoples of New Mexico and Arizona. On a lazy hot summer day I had awoken from a nap along a trail to watch a mother bear and a cub drowsily nap in a cleft of a cliff on the opposite of the canyon. The cub shifted from a prone position at his mother’s feet to a position where he rested his chin on her hips. The mother was dreaming, slowly moving her hindlegs, as if walking.

Has anyone else seen a bear in the McCamey/Iraan/Sheffield region recently? Bears are usually wary and do not reveal themselves to humans very often (except for campground habituated ones.) Is all of the recent oil field activity in the Geddis Canyon area causing bears to move further north? Or was it just a lone young male wandering and searching for a new home range?