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Excerpts from Abe Peña's  popular publications

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

from RANCHING

"Black Bears on Oso Ridge

It was September 30, 1967, and we were gathering cattle on the Oso Ridge Allotment in the Zuni Mountains of western New Mexico. Our Forest Service grazing permit was from May 1 to September 30. We had stocked the permit with 235 steer yearlings and were gathering them to truck them to the Canyon Largo ranch north of Ambrosio Lake.

During the summer, bears had killed eight yearlings which we had seen. I was pretty certain there were others we had not seen. It was rough country covered with brush, trees, and rocky canyons. Max Miller, the Navajo cowboy looking after the cattle, had reported seeing a lame sow with two cubs near one of the carcasses at Ojo Bonito, a spring on the Continental Divide.

I reported the losses to the State Game Warden, and he gave us permission to kill any bear found killing or eating a carcass. He also told us, if we killed one, to skin it and take the skin to him. I took Max Miller a 44 Remington rifle with instructions to shoot any bear killing cattle. He carried the rifle but never used it.

I asked him later why he didn't use it, and, looking me straight in the eye, answered, “There are spiritual reasons.” I respected his opinion and suggested he continue to carry the rifle, and fire it in the air to spook the beast if he saw one messing around with the cattle.

Usually the kills were near waters where the cattle watered. In the hot days of summer, the cattle drank water, then lay down to rest, chew the cud, and sleep. Bears generally surprised and struck a snoozing yearling with a vicious blow, stunned him, then went for the jugular.

We had to save every steer we possibly could, to repay the cattle loan to the bank and cover the fixed and operating expenses. Like most ranchers, some years we made a little money, some years we broke even, and some years we lost money. Ranching is a great way of life, but also a very risky business.

After a hearty breakfast, we left Valle Largo camp in a light-falling early snow to finish gathering the last of the yearlings. There were three of us, and we headed in different directions to cover the 13,000-acre allotment. I was riding Amos, a good Palomino horse we had raised on the ranch. I packed a 30-30 Remington just in case.

I reached Ojo Bonito about mid-morning, and snow was still falling lightly. Approaching the spring, I heard a bear grunt and saw it running into a thick wooded area followed by two small cubs. It was the large black sow, limping from the right front leg, that had left signs at several of the other kills. They had been eating on a relatively fresh kill, and I decided to follow and try to put an end to the killing.

I could hear her breaking limbs as they ran down the heavily wooded canyon. It was easy tracking in the snow. About a mile down the canyon, where it meets Alamosa Canyon, I lost their tracks in the scrub oak and thought I had lost them. Suddenly, she got up with a grunt some 30 yards away, and they started running again. Apparently she figured I had given up the chase, and they had lay down to rest.

She was running with a pronounced limp, almost holding her foreleg in the air. Since she had slowed down, it was easier to follow. I could hear her breaking limbs of fallen aspens as they ran, and I was able to get sight of them from time to time.

After a while, she decided to climb out of the shallow canyon and started to cross an open meadow with tall grass to her belly. I jumped off Amos and leaned the old 30-30 on a ponderosa pine and fired as she ran with her cubs across the open ground. The shot knocked her down, and the little cubs ran across the meadow and climbed a pine tree, crying like babies.

She struggled getting up on her hind legs, and began to look for me then started awkwardly walking towards me. I fired again and she kept coming, and I kept firing until she went down again. After a few minutes, I walked slowly with the gun at the ready to make sure she was dead. As I got closer, she tried to get up and I finished her off with shot to the head.

After prayerfully and quietly calming my nerves, I took out my pocket knife and started skinning her. It was an eerie feeling, especially skinning her “hands and feet”... there is something almost human-like, and, in the words of Max Miller, “something spiritual.”

While I was skinning the aging and crippled beast, I kept trying to decide what to do about the little cubs high up on that tall ponderosa pine. I finally decided, after searching my soul and considering several options, that, with winter coming on, the little fellows would die of starvation, and the most humane thing to do was kill them.

That evening at Valle Largo, we talked about why some bears become killers. Through the years, there were years when we had some kills, and we concluded that a bear not able to forage for one reason or another becomes a killer of livestock to survive. In the case of the crippled sow, we concluded she killed because she had to feed her cubs, and, with her injured leg, she could not do it in the normal way. The number one priority of any mother... human or bear... take care of your offspring at all costs.

The following year, we had no losses to bears. There were still bears on Oso Ridge, but they were not killers. We co-existed in harmony."