OT bear on a brige

[papabear]

i got this from another site thought you might enjoy the story behind it
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A little story and picture show about the Golden Bear
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I had posted this up on the California forum and had a guy suggest that I put it on the main forum. The Donner Pass area is a very nice and scenic area here in Califronia. Great lakes for fishing, great country for hunting deer and bears. One bear decided to go for a walk on a local road with a bridge. So here is the rest of the story.

This bridge is on the Old Donner Pass Highway. It has spectacular Sierra Views and views of Donner Lake and Donner Pass on Route 80. A bear was walking across Rainbow Bridge (Old Hwy 40 at Donner Summit, Truckee) on Saturday when two cars also crossing the bridge scared the bear into jumping over the edge of the bridge. Somehow the bear caught the ledge and was able to pull itself to safety. Authorities decided that nothing could be done to help Saturday night so they returned Sunday morning to find the bear sound asleep on the ledge. After securing a net under the bridge the bear was tranquilized, fell into the net, lowered, then woke up and walked out of the net.


Here he is checking out the scene from the arch of the bridge.



Hanging on for dear life. About a 80 foot drop down to the river bed.



Drugged up and going for a ride.



Being lowered down to safety.



Looking him straight in the eyes after waking up.

[gamekeeper]

Great story and great photos, The last one looks a bit to close for comfort to me, hope it was a telephoto lens!!

[handirifle]

Yea, if not the photographer, was probably expecting him to go the OTHER way . Nice pics and nice story. Good to see the bear live another day.

Before I read the story, I thought, "how in the world did he get up there?",
He's lucky he didn't fall all the way.

[86er]

Very cool photos. I wonder what the bear was thinking when he/she decided to wander out on the bridge.

[Hanz]

WOW!!

Is that a toll bridge? Or was the bear trying to be a troll

Good looking bear. I'm glad they helped him out.

[BlaineCGarverakaTubbyTuba]

That could have been a grizzly scene if he had slipped. If that last pic wasn't a telephoto lens, there might have been trouble a bruin.

[Mike D.]

I saw that on yesterday's local news. Bears are very common and we see them nearly every week. I have not hunted bears because it does not interest me, despite their abundance. A couple of years back a big sow ate an entire box of pears that was sitting on the porch of our cabin. My brother's dog treed it, but we left her alone and she eventually took off.

[RIHMFIRE]

Great story and pics...We have a lot of bears in Florida.
Had a bear encounter this past weekend..
I was taking a snooze in my treestand while
deer hunting..and a 6 foot plus bear strolled in..
I just happened to open my eyes when he was about
20 yards away...I sat there a minute or so and in a real
deep low voice said...."I told you to stay out of here.."
All he did was....picked up his head and looked in my
direction...My ladder stand has a blind at the platform..
so he could not see me...so I took my plastic water bottle
and crushed it with my foot...and he was out of there in a flash..
sounded like a truck running through the palmettos

[Rusty]

Hey Boo Boo where'd you put that picnic basket?

Rusty <><

[KirkD]

That looks like a Grizzly. I didn't know you had them as far south as CA.

[Mike D.]

No Grizzlies in CA, Kirk. The last California Grizzly Bear was shot in 1922, long after most of the huge population had been destroyed. At the beginning of the Gold Rush there was an estimated 10,000 grizzlies in the state and 75 years later all were gone. A real testament to man's fear and ignorance.

The CA Grizzly is the official mammal of CA and still appears on the state flag. It was the largest bear in the area, sometimes weighing over a ton, and refused to back down and retreat from man. Many hundreds were used for "sport", where they would be forced to fight a bull for the entertainment of the public. I would like to see then reintroduced, starting in East LA.

[KirkD]

That's what I thought, Mike, but that photo sure does look like a Grizzly. I've seen lots of Black Bears, but never one that looked like that, with the long muzzle and those type of ears ... and the claws are a lot longer than our Black Bears up here, even the big ones. If that is a Black Bear, the genetics must be a bit different from what we got up here in central Canada. Of course, I've never seen a CA Black Bear, so I'm not in a very good position to compare.

[Mike D.]

Oh yes, they can be quite "Grizzlyesque" at times, and BIG, too. My firs reaction at seeing that photo was the same as yours, Kirk. It could have been the camera angle that made the bear look slightly more imposing, I don't know. Pretty color, though.

I have a friend who called me last year with complaints of a big "Golden" bear tearing up his garden. It is a blond color of the Black Bear, not uncommon in these parts. It is now back and up to no good, he says. Hmm, maybe I should get a tag.

[Ysabel Kid]

Wow indeed!!!

[Gun Runner]

Know that bridge very well. Wife was in a head-on wreck there. She was driving a big olds 98 with her son and daughter and a little plastic car with 5 kids came flying around the curve into the olds. Wife checked her kids, no problems, then started checking on the other cars passengers. Some very serious injuries, luckly a Dr. and his nurse were rock clmbing next to the bridge and helped in rendering aid. Wife is an ex-LVN.
There's a lot of bear in that area, and some of the black bears I have seen at my daughters place (she's 25 mi from there) go well over 300 lbs.

Gun Runner