A Word About Animals

Growing up on the farm, I assumed that all kids grew up understanding certain things about animals.  We had various animals around all the time, watched wildlife run through nearby fields, and read tons of books and watched VHS tapes (remember those?) about animals of all kinds.  While we could be fascinated and enchanted and eager to learn more, the one thing we always knew was that animals are dangerous.

Even a tame animal can turn on a person.  To this day, I never walk near the cows without straining my ears for any sound of fast-moving hooves or glancing over my shoulder in all directions as I go.  My cattle aren't wild or mean.  They also aren't tame enough to have lost their fear of humans.  Even so, I can never assume they are safe.

Wild animals are even more unpredictable than domesticated animals.  Herds will stampede, individual animals will charge, cornered animals will bite or scratch, and some predators will view humans as food.  

That's right.  Those majestic, innocent creatures might just choose you for lunch.  If you go running in the woods, expect to trigger the chase instinct in a cougar.  If you go hiking in the wilderness keep an eye out for bears and have some sort of defense mechanism with you.  Oh yes, I know.  You already know that bears might attack if they are startled or if you get too near their food or cubs.  Did you also know that bears will hunt humans?  That wasn't in your bear aware training, was it?

I'm not saying that every bear will make predatory attacks on humans, but it is not out of the question.  I was reminded of this by a recent post on social media.  Reading the story of a couple who survived a predatory attack by a bear reminded me of something I read nearly a year ago, in a 1921 book by Agnes C. Laut entitled, "The Fur Trade of North America."  Chapter 4 of Part 2 begins this way:

"The city man, who goes bear-hunting with a bodyguard of armed guides in a field where the hunted have been on the run from the hunter for a century, gets a very tame idea of the natural bear in its natural state. Bears that have had the fear of man inculcated with long-range repeaters lose confidence in the prowess of an aggressive onset against invisible foes. The city man comes back from the wilds with a legend of how harmless bears have become. In fact, he doesn't believe a wild animal ever attacks unless it is attacked. He doubts whether the bear would go on its life-long career of rapine and death, if hunger did not compel it, or if repeated assault and battery from other animals did not teach the poor bear the art of self-defense.

"Grizzly old trappers coming down to the frontier towns of the Western States once a year for provisions, or hanging round the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada for the summer, tell a different tale. Their hunting is done in a field where human presence is still so rare that it is unknown and the bear treats mankind precisely as he treats all other living beings from moose and the musk-ox to mice and ants - as fair game for his own insatiable maw."

The inside cover of Agnes C. Laut's "The Fur Trade of America"

The majority of the chapter is filled by several stories of bears hunting and brutally attacking people (I first read this chapter at night - big mistake!) The chapter ends as follows:

"Such is bear-hunting and such is the nature of the bear. And these things are not of the past. Wherever long-range repeaters have not put the fear of man in the animal heart, the bear is the aggressor. Even as I write comes word from a little frontier fur post which I visited in 1901, of a seven-year-old boy being waylaid and devoured by a grizzly only four miles back from a transcontinental railway. This is the second death from the unprovoked attacks of bears within a month in that country - and that month, the month of August 1902, when sentimental ladies and gentlemen many miles away from danger were sagely discussing whether the bear is naturally ferocious or not - whether, in a word, it is altogether humane to hunt bears."

All that to say, wild animals in general are unpredictable and dangerous. I have seen far too many videos on social media lately of people getting close to such wild animals as bears and bison just to get a video or see the beast up close. These are not tame animals. 

If you want to marvel at the beauty of a wild animal or snap a photo, that's fine.  Just make sure you are at a safe distance.  

If you are in a vehicle, stay in the vehicle.  

If you are on foot, keep your distance.  Keep a much greater distance than you might want.  

If an animal approaches you, even if it seem friendly and/or curious, back away and get to safety.  Do not run unless it is the only option.  Running will trigger a predator's chase instinct and you will never outrun that animal.

Beware large herbivores.  Bison, moose, elk, and even deer can also be dangerous if they are cornered, protecting their young or territory, or during the season of rut.

I don't write this to scare you or to deter you from enjoying nature.  I simply want to do my part to keep you all safe.  As I mentioned earlier, I have seen far too many videos on social media that have left me shaking my head and wondering how the person survived an encounter with so many foolish blunders.

My best piece of advice is this: learn all you can about as many different animals as you can.  

Read such things as pocket guides of mammals, animal behaviour books, blogs from farmers talking about their cows, magazine articles about newly discovered species, books about true stories of crazy survival events.  Buy children's books about different types of animals and read them with your kids.  Everything you can learn about animals (and other aspects of nature) is important.  

Some of the animal information sources in my house. 
I wasn't kidding about the children's books and VHS tapes.

The tiny little bits of trivia may not seem important as you learn them, but as they accumulate, your understanding will grow and you will be well equipped to venture into nature in as safe a manner as possible.

Flexibility in a Farmer's Day

It is 10:38 am on a lazy Monday morning.  It is too damp out to rake or bale the hay that we cut last week.  It is too cold to want to do odd jobs outside.  Okay, it's 6 degrees outside, a temperature that I will consider downright balmy come spring.  But on this September day, just a few days after I spent hours sweating in a tractor, I am not exactly enthusiastic about going outside.  Autumn is my wimpy season.

Inside the house isn't much better at 14 degrees.  I am too stubborn to turn on the furnace yet, so I am huddled under a blanket in my living room, watching a science show and considering my tasks for the day.  

I need to do chores.  At this time of year, chores consist of feeding a bit of grain to the few yearlings that will soon be butchered for beef and feeding the barn cats.  Neither of those jobs is urgent.  The yearlings eat mainly hay - they were eating grass up until a few days ago when I ran out of enough pasture close to the yard - and I know they have plenty of hay to eat until I bring them their dessert.  I only feed the cats to keep them somewhat tame and encourage them to stick around.  They are my pest control officials.  My dad has just told me that he is going to cut the last few acres of hay, so he will be busy until lunchtime or so.

As I weigh my options concerning what I can do after chores, my phone rings.  It is my mom - who is on her way to the city, telling me that some calves, and maybe some cows, are in the neighbour's canola.  Frustrated, I get off the phone, shove my feet into my running shoes, and take off sprinting down the driveway to catch my dad, who is just leaving with the tractor and discbine.  By the time I get his attention, we are both at the end of the driveway and I am coughing in a futile attempt to get the sudden rush of cold air out of my lungs.  Between coughs, I relay the message to my dad and we both turn around and head back to the yard.  Chasing escaped cattle back into the pasture is not always a one-person job.

Dad parks the tractor, while I return to the house to replace my shoes with work boots and to put on a sufficient coat.  As I jog to the garage to find my gloves, I realize I am clad almost entirely in brown.  Brown boots, brown work pants, brown coat.  My dark blue hoodie sticks out the top of my coat, and a dirty orange cap tops my head.  This ensemble will have to change drastically in a few weeks when hunting season starts.  At that time, I will ensure my orange cap is clean and that I am wearing my coveralls with high visibility stripes any time I go out to the field or pasture.  I will not be mistaken for a deer!

Within a few minutes of the phone call, my dad and I are in the truck, driving to the rented pasture where a third of my herd has been living for the summer.  The cows have been escaping from this pasture all summer and we have been chasing cows back in, searching for holes in the fences, and fixing and strengthening the fence as much as possible.  By this time, we cannot fathom where they have possibly found a weak spot to escape.  

Dad teaching my friend to build a fence as we replaced part of the fence on my aunt's land in 2015.

Cresting the hill next to my aunt's property, we slow down and starting scanning the pasture for the herd.  This pasture is actually two separately-owned pastures right next to each other.  Whoever rents my aunt's pasture gets to rent the neighbour's pasture because the neighbour's land has no water.  The problem part of the pasture is on the neighbour's land, where a line of huge power lines run through the property, making it difficult to crop the land because farmers don't want to drive around poles and support cables all the time.  We easily spot the herd spread across this portion of the pasture, but no animals in the next-door canola field.  A few are right next to the fence, in an area that juts into the field, but on closer inspection. they are all still in the pasture.

Relieved, my dad and I drive into the pasture just to make sure nothing is wrong.  All is well.

Since we're there, we decide to count the herd to make sure all of the animals are there.  I will count the cows, and dad will count the calves.  Some time later, we are sure that there are 29 cows, 1 heifer, and 1 bull.  There are at least 29 calves.  There should be 30, but counting calves isn't easy in a slightly spooked, moving, bunched up herd.

Can you count the calves in this picture?
This herd is spread out and standing still. Imagine the difficulty if they were bunched up and moving!

Finally giving up and leaving the cattle to settle down, we return home and get back to what we were doing an hour earlier: Dad takes the tractor out to the field and I finally get around to doing my chores and trying to figure out what to do next.  Utilizing the flexibility that allows for such delays is a normal part of a farmer's day.

What did I end up doing?  I retreated to the (somewhat warmer) house and wrote a blog.