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[RC] Fwd: Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My! - John Teeter

From: "Melissa Margetts Ms. Kitty" <margetts@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: April 14, 2008 11:33:07 PM GMT+08:00
Subject: Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

>Steph, I have never had any luck posting, though I have been a member for a while now. I was hoping you could post THIS response though, please.Thanks, Melissa Margetts
====
Hi Ranelle,
I saw your post about concern over bears on the Tevis trail. Though I have been a reader of ridecamp for quite awhile, I have never had any luck being able to post anything, so I just gave up. Your email address was included on this post though so I thought I'd send you a pic. of some of those bears.

My name is Melissa Margetts and I had the first Paso Fino to ever complete the Tevis last year. I am from Telluride Colorado and have run a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center here for 30 years. When I went out to do the Tevis last year, I was conditioning right before Forest Hills in the late afternoon a few days before the ride. I was by myself and we had been moving out very well, as we live at 9,600 ft and the terrain on Cougar Rock is the stuff my guy has to climb just to get his breakfast here in Telluride. Narrow trails and rock with hidden bugaboos and "horse eaters" have never seemed to phase him. ( Lucky Me!) We were on a very narrow part of the trail with no place to turn around when my horse froze. Not 20 feet ahead of us was a momma bear AND her two cubs. She stood upright while the little guys jumped onto the tree next to the trail. We were on sheer granite and at that time, he had steel shoes on.

I knew that if Cabo shuffled or skittered around at all we were going off the cliff. Instead, we had a stand-off for about fifteen minutes. My legs were shaking quite a bit after I realized that momma wasn't going to give up the trail and it was too narrow and slippery to turn around. I just kept talking quietly to my brave little buckskin.. The mom stood down on all fours in a couple of minutes but held her ground. I yelled at her, to no avail. The cubs eventually climbed down off the tree and one came walking right down the path at us out of curiosity. When it was about 5' in front of the Mom and about 15' from us, Mom reared up again and snorted. Cabo suddenly did a "High- Ho-Silver" maneuver, reared up himself, pivoted and we were suddenly facing down the trail going the opposite way.

I had taken my feet out of the stirrups earlier just in case we were going to go down, so I was lucky that I didn't come out of the saddle when he reared. His perfect pirouette happened so fast. Joanne at the Tevis office also has a copy of the pic I took. You can see how alert and pricked Cabos ears were. Unfortunately, it put an end to the training day and instead of waiting and trying to take the trail again in a couple of hours, I just rode back to camp.

If you type sweetmayleesa into your browser, it will take you directly to my MySpace page where a slide show automatically starts and you can see why he was such a brave little horse. He has been living in the pasture next to my mountain lions, and in-coming bobcats, coyotes, bears, badgers and other predators his whole life. The bears that I encountered on the Tevis trail were definitely habituated to people and weren't afraid of us at all, nor were they going to give up the trail. I have thought often since, that if I were on any other horse, I probably would have needed to be airlifted out of that canyon from an incredible tumble down the cliff. I do believe we were in THEIR backyard though and the only reason they were not afraid of us, is because so many of us seem to be trespassing into their habitat constantly on our horses and bikes on foot etc. They really need to make an aggressively bold move in order to deserve tracking, tranquilizing, and relocating (especially if they have cubs) in order to justify taking such action. But that's just my opinion, having both encountered and needing to relocate "problem" bears.

I realize that I was very lucky and am grateful that these guys were not more aggressive. I choose to understand that it WAS a mother bear and she had young cubs to protect. I believe that if indeed certain bears start frequenting specific areas and start challenging and endangering people more than once or twice, then action should be considered though, but ONLY if warranted and continued threat is imminent. We are knowingly taking our chances going into wilderness areas and by doing so, are accepting the risks of such. Wilderness is just what it means. So my first choice would be to leave them alone and feel blessed for having enjoyed and lived through a close encounter adrenaline rush. But that's just me.

Melissa Margetts


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