Interesting but bearable Mother's Day hunt

[TauntoHawk]

Sunday morning a friend, my wife, and I were hunting a farm in the Catskills in Greene county Ny. Yes that's right I have a wife that wanted to turkey hunt on her first Mother's Day while my mom graciously watched our daughter (yeah I'm that lucky). Anyways the morning started like every other hunt on that mountain, as daylight broke a bird starts gobbling from a section of pines just behind a small pond at the top of a pasture lot. That's where they always roost, we set up in the direction we expected them to fly down in let him get good and cranking before I threw some soft calls which were met with the type of enthusiasm that says I'm coming over there as soon as I'm out of this tree! Problem was he never left his tree! Hens flew down at 5:45 and walked right through our set up but this bird stayed in the tree til 9am and gobbled over 600 times. No chance he could see us from his roost or see us that morning as we walked in just wouldn't budge we eventually tried to get closer and closer resulting in bumping him. I threw everything from 35min of silence at him to walking away calling and gobbling he would choke himself gobbling but not fly down. Weird one and a first for me

But that's not the end of the morning, as we walked out talking about what was the matter with that bird we were crossing a plowed field for a corn when we spotted something black in the field. My buddy thought it was a porcupine but as we watched it move we could tell it wasn't that I thought maybe it was a sick raccoon as it appeared to be stumbling and was no were near the woods just out in the beating sunshine. I said if it's a sick coon we better go check it out and we started walking over to it 200yds away. What we found was a smaller than a house cat bear cub. Covered in burrs and plastered with porcupine quills in his face neck and back leg. We uneasily surveyed the surrounding for mom but we were 500yds from the nearest tree. The cub was so weak he couldn't stand for more than 10 seconds before falling over. My wife kept asking what's gonna happen to him? Will he make it? Where's his mom and will she find him again? After not having any good answers for her she said "we'll we aren't leaving him here to die on Mother's Day". My buddy James scooped the little guy up and we started pulling quills out of him, while we could easily see a few there were many that were completely embedded under skin except a tiny point of the quill. We carried him back to the truck to get some pliers and finished taking out as many of the quills as we could which was about 60 in total. Once we got everything we could get to without cutting them out he seemed much less in pain but still very dehydrated. We called an ECO we have worked with in the past (ironically it was for nuisance bear tags) and he said he knew of a rehabilitation center that could probably take him and he'd call us back later that day. So off we went with our new friend in the truck, little guy acted like a puppy and would just curl up for naps in your lap. We got him to the house and used a small syringe to feed him some liquids and boy that perked him up. Later that day we met up with the ECO and rehab center lady and handed the bear over.

I will state here that picking up bear cubs is dangerous and we would have left quickly had we not been in the wide open. Also wild animals while cute as baby's are not pets and should not be kept by the general public and raised as one. Yes I've had like 50 ppl tell me I should have kept it. Really?!? Because I'm pretty sure that's a wild male bear and he'd make a terrible pet.

[TauntoHawk]

Some pics of him where we found him and his paws, little guy had some claws.

[TauntoHawk]

All cleaned up and fed

[TauntoHawk]

Riding in the truck and sunglasses for nap time because nobody likes the sun in their eyes when they're trying to sleep off a porcupine attack.

[TRG3]

Thanks for sharing that very interesting story. No bears here in Southern Illinois . You've got to go 300 miles north to Chicago to see Da Bears!

[bbcustomboxcalls]

Great story!  You did the absolutely the right thing.

Bill

[kyturkeyhunter4]

  Awesome story

[Oconeeguy]

Poor little fella. Yall were the best thing that could have happened to him under the circumstances

[tomstopper]

Great story!  You did the absolutely the right thing.

Bill

I agree. It was definitely the humane thing to do for sure....

[njdevilsb]

That is an awesome story.  I'm glad you guys helped him out.

[Snoodsniper]

That's cool. Glad it worked out. I took an owl to a rehabilitator once.  Seems good to save a life. Lord knows I take enough of them.

[TauntoHawk]

That's cool. Glad it worked out. I took an owl to a rehabilitator once.  Seems good to save a life. Lord knows I take enough of them.

I did have someone say, "why, dont you hunt and kill bears".. As hunters we care more about habitat, healthy populations, and animals making it to maturity more than anyone else. We also don't enjoy any animal suffering thats not what the sport is about at all. People just don't understand that while hunters "kill" animals we can love and respect them at the same time. 

It was a fun and unique opportunity and I was especially glad my wife was along on that hunt.

[guesswho]

Pretty neat.  Any update on the little fellow?

[Ihuntoldschool]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing.  Excellent point about the concern and respect hunters have for the game hunted, most hunters at least I would hope.  Non-hunters for the most part will never truly understand or appreciate this, although some "hunters" and I use the term loosely as these guys are really just killers never will either.  You should be commended for your courageous and caring actions, and hopefully the person you explained your concern and love for the animals may just have a different attitude or perception of what hunting is all about.

[mgm1955]

Great story!! Thanks for sharing.