Image by Mark Bender, USFWS
Black Bear
The black bear is the second largest wild animal in New England. At full size, it weighs hundreds of pounds but can move fast. It is a practical animal, eating everything it finds, although it prefers plant foods. It is smart. It remembers places and food sources. Mother bears tend their cubs for many months, teaching them how to survive. When I’ve been lucky enough to observe bears in my work as a journalist, I admire how they tend their young.
Resource: https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Wildlife/Fact-Sheets/Black-Bear
What do you love about this particular creature?
What do they reveal to you about God and our faith?
I love that bears are smart. These days, black bears are clashing regularly with humans in suburban areas. Bears have been increasing in Connecticut, where I live, although their population hovers around just 2,000. As bears thrive, humans must handle how we both love and fear them. To be wild, as a bear is meant to be wild, a bear should not depend on people as it ranges for its food. Bears do not want to interact with us, but as they spread east from their concentrated numbers in higher country, they encounter easy food sources in dumpsters, on loading docks, and inside kitchens. And they remember. They return to the food. They learn how to open car and screen doors. And they can become aggressive if someone tries to keep them away from such food. Then, wildlife officials might come in and kill them to prevent the bears from killing people. My state has no bear hunting season now. The bears have no natural predators except people. Once, long ago, they would have been preyed on by wolves.
If a bear acts in its self-interest on seeing me—charging me, for example, if I’m in the way of something it wants, or if I advance too close to its cubs—I hold the power to call someone who can end its life. This is a huge responsibility, a humbling one.
Author - Christine Woodside
Christine Woodside is a writer and writing teacher based in Deep River, Connecticut.
Oh redeemer of all creatures, help me to hold back: give me restraint to avoid treating bears like domestic beings, to let them range wild, to keep my food away from them so they can live as wild animals. Help all people protect wild lands that will allow these magnificent mammals space.