Posted on 07/06/2005 5:01:09 PM PDT by SJackson
There's a story rippling through the hills and valleys of northern Dunn County about a bear, a man, a jug and a rope.
It's the story of a man running down a bear to pull a plastic jug off its head.
"I knew that bear was in trouble. I thought, 'I got to save that bear's life,' " dairy farmer Mark Hanson recently said at his 200-acre family farm nestled in a valley between Ridgeland and Sand Creek.
Mr. Hanson, 42, was going home from a hayfield for lunch on a Saturday when he noticed his horses all looking in the same direction.
"I saw something black heading for the neighbors' buildings. Then I saw it was the bear with a jug over its head," Mr. Hanson said.
Reports on the bear, which grew thinner by the day because it couldn't eat, had stretched since mid-May from Ridgeland to Dallas to Sand Creek.
Mr. Hanson hadn't seen the jughead bruin. But he'd heard the stories.
Mr. Hanson drove his pickup along the sandy driveway. With the truck still rolling, he shouted for his wife, Carol, and daughters, Cari and Laura, to jump in.
The bear was lumbering between farm buildings when the Hansons rolled into Gerhard and Grace Nyhus' yard.
Grabbing a rope left in the truck from moving a freezer the day before, Mr. Hanson took off after the bear. He hoped he could corral it into one of the buildings. Instead, the bear headed up a wooded hillside behind the Nyhuses' buildings, down the backside of the hill and into a cornfield.
Mr. Hanson was in hot pursuit.
"I knew I could keep up with that bear," he said. "It was small and thin, and it had a hard time breathing. It was stumbling over stumps and dead logs."
Mr. Hanson estimated the animal weighed about 100 pounds.
Mr. Hanson, a farmer-fit 5-feet-7-inches and 175 pounds, said he stayed as near as 10 feet behind the bear while the chase carried on over a quarter-mile. The jug, which had only seven pinholes in its side, made it difficult for the bear to breathe.
The bear was giving in.
"He just played out," said Mr. Hanson, who by then tied a "cowboy loop" in the rope.
In cowboy style - but without one of his dozen horses beneath him - Mr. Hanson threw the lasso. He wanted to catch the bear around the neck, but instead the circle slipped to the bruin's waist.
"Here I was with the bear at the end of the rope," Mr. Hanson said.
He laughed as he described the scene.
"He was pulling and snarling, and I knew I couldn't get that jug off with one hand," Mr. Hanson said.
There was a tree close by, so he tied the loose end of the rope around the trunk. He inched closer to the bear, its nose only an inch away from the 2-gallon jug's bottom.
Mr. Hanson reached out with both hands.
"We heard the bear bellow twice. We didn't know what was going on," said Mrs. Hanson, her eyes wide open.
"On the second try, I got that jug off," Mr. Hanson said. "But then I had a bear tied to a tree."
Mr. Hanson hid behind the tree and then got some cooperation from the bear.
"He started up the tree, and when he did I grabbed the rope from behind," Mr. Hanson said. "He looked back and wanted to bite me, but I was able to pull the rope off him."
Mr. Hanson wasn't bitten or clawed while trying to save the bear's life. After 20 minutes, the bear got down from the tree and ran to a nearby creek.
"It's amazing it survived close to a month with that jug on its head," said Jeff Carstens, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife technician in Dunn County.
Mr. Carstens said the first call about the bear was made May 20. While the bear had no food for at least four weeks, there's a question of how much water it had and how it got water.
The plastic jug is 13 inches tall, with an 8-inch opening, ballooning to 9 inches inside. Mr. Hanson said the jug's mouth was tight on the bear's neck.
The animal either got water and air through the small holes on the jug's side or was able to lie in a creek and let water seep into the jug.
Jim Cleven, a DNR warden in Dunn County, said the bear was likely a yearling male chased from the family by its mother, now with this year's cubs. Mr. Cleven said it's surprising the bear survived and also that he couldn't get the jug off his head.
"He either didn't know how to get it off or it was just on too tight after it slipped over the bear's jaw line," Mr. Cleven said.
Mr. Cleven guessed the holes in the jug's side were from the bear's claws.
Mr. Cleven said the DNR and Dunn County Sheriff's Department received 11 calls about the bear.
Mr. Cleven said the hungry bear was getting desperate, approaching buildings in search of food while it lost up to 30 pounds. Attempts were made to find the bear to trap it or tranquilize it. But when the calls were made to the Sheriff's Department, DNR workers were usually 30 minutes away at Menomonie.
"We went on some wild goose chases," Mr. Carstens said.
Mr. Carstens said he wouldn't recommend Mr. Hanson's course of action for everyone.
"There's certainly a fair amount of risk involved," Mr. Carstens said. "But I'm happy he got the jug off. I'm sure the bear will lay low for a while and recover."
Mr. Hanson said he understood the risk.
"I've been kicked and bit by horses and cows. I wasn't scared," he said. "I had heard about that bear and nobody had done anything about it. I hate to see an animal starve to death."
That's not a bear with a jug on his head - that's a Heffalump in my trap!
It fits!
Winnie The Pooh didn't know what to do!
I wonder how much money I could make setting up a betting pool for prospective Darwin Award winners?
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