A young grizzly bear apparently boldly climbs a stack of hay bales near Cody and started tearing the bales apart, only to take a tumble off the top of the stack and then looked sad and embarrassed about it.
The hay bales were stacked as an archery target backstop at the Shoshone Lodge and Guest Ranch. It's located off U.S. Highway 14/16/20 west of Cody, just a few miles from the East Gate into Yellowstone National Park.
Lodge owners Betsy and Mike Christiansen are used to seeing grizzlies on their property during the spring, as the bears come out of hibernation and start looking for food.
Betsy Christiansen told Cowboy State Daily she’s not sure why one particular young bear scaled the hay stack about two weeks ago; she’s never seen anything like that.
She surmised the bear might have been after mice that had burrowed into the bales.
Cody resident Aubrey Slackey watched the bear’s antics from inside his vehicle, and took video.
He told Cowboy State Daily that the look on the bear’s face after it fell off the haystack was priceless.
“He looked like he was embarrassed. He gave me a look like, ‘You didn’t just see me do that,’” Slackey said.
Good Place To See Bears
Slackey said that the stretch of highway between the lodge and the East Gate is one of the best places see grizzlies and other wildlife during the spring.
Christiansen said the bears don’t worry her.
And as long as people behave themselves and stay a safe distance away from the grizzlies, there’s no trouble, she added.
“When you go for hikes, you just make sure to take your bear spray,” she said.
“We see them (grizzlies) around here all the time. Some years, we’ll get the same bears that will come back regularly,” Christiansen said.
Although it can be difficult to distinguish one bear from another, she doesn’t think the bear that clambered up the haystack had been there before. And after his embarrassing tumble, it’s not certain if he’ll return.
A Good View
The Christiansens watched the bear’s haystack mishap from the lodge, some distance away.
Slackey had a much better view from inside his vehicle; the archery range isn’t too far from the access road to the lodge off the highway.
He was out on one of his regular wildlife-watching drives when he first spotted the bear “just walking down the road.”
He thought he saw it head toward the lodge property after stepping off the road, but he kept driving up the East Gate.
On his return trip, he decided to pull into the lodge. He knows the Christiansens and wanted to alert them that a bear might be on their property.
Fall From Grace
As he pulled in to the lodge property, he saw the young grizzly atop the haystack, earnestly trying to rip open bales.
He took the opportunity to start taking video and the bear went about its business, as if Slackey wasn’t even there.
At one point in the video, the grizzly starts shoving its head into a hole in one of the top bales, as if it’s trying to snatch a tasty mouse in its jaws.
But gravity takes over, and the bear falls off, landing more or less on its butt before flopping over on its back.
The video shows the bear standing up and looking confused, sad, embarrassed and maybe even a little angry, all at once.
Then the bear turns and leaves, breaking into a run as it heads for the tree line.
Slackey said he’s not sure if he’ll ever see that particular bear again. But he’s sure he’ll enjoy watching other spring grizzlies on the lodge property and elsewhere alongside the highway.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
