White Buffalo NRA Whittington center

[dougridgeore]

While Shooting at this year’s f class national championships (New Mexico) we needed to fire some fouling shots one evening, so why not shoot at the white buffalo....while shooting at white buffalo this bear literally walked in to my scope. I took this picture with my iPhone thru my Kahles 10x-50x scope

 

[spclark]

Reason #1 not to leave your lunchbox on the cabin porch overnight... or beer cans (empty or full!!), or filled garbage bags.

 

[Laurie]

That's a great pic! When I went to Raton in August 2013 with the GB contingent for the F-Class Worlds, most of my fellow Brits were desperate to see a bear or failing that an elk as we'd been told they come onto the ranges. (I hoped to see a rattlesnake - don't even know if there are any in that bit of New Mexico.) All I saw in a couple of weeks was lots of Pronghorns and one small flock of wild turkeys, - no bears, no elk, no snakes around that year.

The only guy who saw a bear was Stuart Anselm the GB F/TR team captain who drove north up the Interstate to do some gift shopping in Trinidad, Colorado and found the traffic suddenly braking hard and weaving around ahead - a bear had hopped onto the southbound carriageway crossed the central reservation and stopped in the middle of the northbound lanes just ahead of him apparently having belatedly noticed all the stalled cars and humans now out on the road pointing and staring at him. Not liking what he saw, he turned tail and ran back across both carriageways onto the hill he'd come off. Stuart got some good pics on his phone and was the only one of us who saw any exciting wildlife in our NM adventure! Shame!

 

[rardoin]

At last year's Nats my father and I watched a medium black bear cut the road in front of us and high tail his arse up the cut bank on the side of the gravel road by the tent camping area. I presume he was looking for a mid-day snack in the refuse cans.

 

[Beruisis]

One year I was out there for the BPCR nationals & we stayed there in the cabins. Woke up one morning & the ice cooler was knocked over & all the beers, water & Dr. Peppers strewn around. I thought somebody was drunk that night but cleaning up noticed all the Dr. Pepper cans were broke open with teeth marks & the cooler was full of teeth marks. I still have that cooler. Was not unusual to find paw prints in the morning on the side of your pick up truck from the rascals checking out the beds at night for consumables.

 

[Laurie]

They break open cans of beer? Wow!

 

[swd]

They break open cans of beer? Wow!

A beer can is nothing to them. If you leave food in your car they’ll peel your door open to get it. It happens all the time in bear country.

 

[Steve Blair]

A beer can is nothing to them. If you leave food in your car they’ll peel your door open to get it. It happens all the time in bear country.

Yes, I've seen the aftermath of a bear removing a pickup truck tailgate to get at the groceries stored within. This was on the main street of Norway, Maine.

 

[Laurie]

Yes, I've seen images of torn-open cars in US and Canadian camping sites on our wildlife TV documentaries - scary! It's the idea of beer guzzling bears sitting around the camp that tickled me, no doubt telling tall stories of past exploits of bears in the woods. (Like real versions of the Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo cartoon shows our TV companies bought off the US networks when I was a kid in the 60s.)

I suppose it's rather more prosaic though. If you're a bear and have learned that a tin = luncheon meat or fish or whatever edible you grab it and rip it open hoping it's your favourite brand of chopped pork or Canadian salmon. What do they do if they find it's beer though? Toss it or try to drink it?

 

[Monte F]

There is nothing a bear will not eat or drink, a least that I have witnessed. They really like t-bone steaks left in the cooler at night or even straight off of the BBQ while cooking in camp (not my camp, I know better than leave it out for them). The city dwellers that come up to Lake Tahoe in the summer camping sure get scared when the bears come through the campground each evening. The rangers chase them off with rubber bullets and dogs.