Bear in the Back Seat I and II: Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Boxed Set

346 Pages·2013·1.48 MB·English

by  DeLozier

Table of Contents
Bear in the Back Seat 1
Map of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Prologue
Bear in the Back Seat
The Bear Whisperer
Blinded by the Light
Dreaming of Bears
The Old Bear
The Hitchhiker
Salt Lick
Running Scared
Horsing Around with Satan
Running for Home
In a Flash
Raccoon!
Appalachian Bear Rescue
Beast on a Leash
Dumb Luck
Sky Diving Cub
Talking Trash
Bears 1, Man 0
Skunked
Smelling Trouble-Elvis and Priscilla
The Good, But Stinky, Samaritan
The Great Skunk Rodeo

The Denim Deer

Something’s In My Pants
Climbing Under the Influence

The Elk Thief
The Escape Artist

Bear Hugs and Other Really Bad Ideas

Running Wild

Underwear on the Trail

Pepper Spray
Bear Attack at Chimneys Picnic Area Stream
Desolation Creek
The Fastest Animal on Earth
Honeymoon from Hell

Bears in the Shadows
My Worst Day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Toying with Bears
The Park’s Most Famous Bear

Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Dedication
Bear in the Back Seat II
Bear in the Back Seat (Again)
Hungry as a Wolf
Crying Wolf
Bear Breakout
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Ranger and Son
The Biologist and the Three Bears
A School for Bears
Let Me Outta Here!
Hungry as a Bear
Bear in Mind
The Bat Cave
Bad Day for Elk
The Best Laid Plans
Playing All the Time
The Dorito Deer
The Bear Thief
Jay and the Bears
Reality Television:The Bear Channel
The Placebo Effect
You Shot What?
Flirting with Disaster
Downtown Elk
Up a Creek
Bad Bear Day
The Trouble with Antlers
The Worst Trip I’ve Ever Been On
Elk Rodeo
Hogs Gone Wild
Hogging the Camera
A Brush with Death
Cold Day in Big South Fork
On the Road Again with Traveller
Third Time’s a Charm
The Best Day of My Career
Appendix:Encountering Black Bears in the Smokies
Dedication
BEAR IN THE BACK SEAT 1
Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger
in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
BY
Kim DeLozier &
Carolyn Jourdan
Copyright © 2013 Kim DeLozier and Carolyn Jourdan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America
ISBN 978-0-9885643-6-7
Bear in the Back Seat is on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/BlackBearBook
Twitter at twitter.com/BlackBearBook
Cover photo by Bill Lea
www.BillLea.com
Designed by Karen Key
MAP OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
In this book Smoky Mountain dialect is rendered as it sounds. Appalachian
speech is poetic and musical. It’s sung as much as spoken, so a significant
portion of the meaning is conveyed in the cadences and tones.
Dialect is used in conversation by people of all levels of education and
intelligence, so no apostrophes will highlight dropped g’s or word variants, as if
they are errors. For the same reason, the local grammar is retained.
This was done to enable the reader to experience Smoky Mountain life and
language intimately, as an insider would.
Wildlife Rangers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have
developed their own special nomenclature for referring to Park vehicles. These
animal nicknames, attributed to Ranger Rick Varner, are based on the size and
power of the various trucks.
The Boar: Half-ton 4x4 Dodge pickup with an 8-cylinder engine. It has a
winch mounted in the bed to pull cages and traps into the back. This was the
most powerful truck. It’s the one used to pull the elk trailer or move bear traps
that had to be transported in the bed of a truck.
The Sow: Half-ton 4x4 Chevrolet extended cab pickup with a 6-cylinder
engine. It has an 8’ bed which made the truck difficult to maneuver in tight
places. It was good for hauling people when conducting deer counts in Cades
Cove. It was big, but not very tough.
The Shoat: Half-ton 4x4 Dodge pickup with a 6-cylinder engine. A
medium-strength vehicle used for tasks like towing bear trap trailers or for
checking hog traps.
The Piglet: Ford Ranger 4x4 pickup with a small engine. A light-duty
vehicle used mainly for checking hog traps and for general transportation.
The Elk Calf: Chevrolet S-10 4x4 pickup with a small engine. A light-duty
vehicle used mainly to track and locate elk and for general transportation.
Kim’s Truck: Ford Explorer 4x4 SUV with a 6-cylinder engine. It was used
for general transportation and elk darting, and occasionally to pull larger trailers
for boats. Although this vehicle was sometimes jokingly referred to as the
grocery gitter, it was Kim’s favorite. It earned respect when used to rescue
researchers and wildlife handlers after a sudden blizzard in Cataloochee, North
Carolina when other vehicles got stuck in the deep snow.
Prologue
WHEN I WAS A KID showing steers in 4-H, I spent a lot of time waiting for
someone old enough to drive to come get me and my animal and take us to the
fairground. Now, more than thirty years later, I was still waiting for someone to
come get me and my animal and take us somewhere. But instead of standing
inside a comfortable barn with my hand-raised, immaculately-groomed steer
while Dad brought the pickup truck around, this time I was huddled atop a ridge
in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during a fierce windstorm next to
a drugged wild black bear, waiting for a stranger to come get us with a
helicopter.
The wind was gusting so violently it was hard to imagine how any aircraft
could possibly reach us. I prayed they were sending a good pilot. As I waited, I
tried to look on the bright side. If I stayed upwind, the naturally pungent smell
of the bear wasn’t nearly as strong.
I THOUGHT I WANTED to be a full-time farmer. I’d been successful raising and
showing cattle and had driven tractors and other farm machinery since I was
very young. When I was a senior in high school I’d even won the East
Tennessee Future Farmers of America Farm and Skills Tractor Driving Contest.
Soon after that I started college, majoring in Agriculture at the University of
Tennessee. I began in Animal Science, but several unpleasant incidents with
cows on the family farm made me wonder if I shouldn’t reconsider my choice.
My first strong hint that farm animals were going to be difficult to deal with
was at a county steer show when one of my half-ton 4-H steers escaped from
our farm truck, chased me through the Gold Rush Junction theme park, now
called Dollywood, ran me up a tree, and then head-butted the tree repeatedly
trying to knock me out of it so he could kill me. I thought my life was over. I
still get goose bumps when I think about it.
Only after I was rescued did I realize I’d saved myself by climbing a tree
that had no limbs for the first ten feet! It had been like shinnying up a flagpole,
but I was able to do it because it sure beat the alternative.