Swimming in OUR pools

[LovelyLadyLux]

Granted this is from the City of Vancouver over on the mainland however WE get even more wildlife doing all sorts of crazy stuff in our backyards (we just don't have TV News cameras recording it)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3221093

(Sorry you have to cut and paste - the URL is apparently not supported)

This weekend too we had 2 men very seriously attacked by grizzly bears. In both cases it was a Momma bear out there protecting her young.

Same with these two baby bears frolicking in the pool. This is cute but if the Mom Bear gets a sense that her cubs MIGHT be in danger a simple house door isn't going to stop her from entering.

Edit from Horus: I found you the original video on YouTube

phpBB [video]

[Horus]

They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves, especially the little black one.

[Jayway]

Nice to see, happy there are no bears here - - oooo eeeerr

[LovelyLadyLux]

If you have fruit trees here you attract bears. If you plant veggie gardens and don't clear them off asap you get bears. If you take your garbage to the dump you see "Garbage bears," If you go camping and on't hoist your food way up up up into the trees you get bears sniffing you at night (SCAREY AS H*LL as they huff and puff and stink like you wouldn't believe) and if you go picking berries in the spring you better wear bear bells so they can hear you coming. LAST think you want to do is ever get between a Momma and her cubs......YIKES!!!

[Horus]

I now have this mental vision of you picking berries in the woods and wearing a jesters outfit covered in bells, then running away from a bear making a merry jingling sound as you go.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Well not to shatter a visual but I do wear a bell but only 1 and usually looped through a button hole

[Horus]

Well not to shatter a visual but I do wear a bell but only 1 and usually looped through a button hole

You can rest assured that if I was the woods with bears about I would be wearing the full jesters outfit, including Noddy's little hat with a bell.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I have come across bears when I've been out walking. What has always struck me first is that you typically see a very very dull pitch black object. They don't seem to reflect light but they do suddenly move and, for me, have always slipped away quickly into the trees. It is usually best to go in the opposite directly real quick. If you're walking with a dog they will often go after the dog so if the bear is REAL close it is usually an idea to let the dog go and hope it can outrun the bear (you won't)

[Horus]

Interesting that we have a similar thing here with cattle in fields where footpaths cross them. It is normal to see a sign saying "Keep dogs on leads" which to my mind is the most dangerous thing you can do. Cattle will attack a dog and try to trample it by crowding around it as a herd, so if you are holding a lead it is you who is going to get trampled and not the dog. I work on the basis that just so long as the dog is under control by verbal commands then you walk with it off the leash, that way if the cattle start to surround you the dog has a chance to run away and hopefully so do you.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Bears will go after a dog and unless the dog is old and slow (in which case you're probably not walking it in bear territory anyway) it will escape a bear. Not necessarily via speed in a straight line chase as bears are pretty fast but usually by agility and typically the bear just wants the dog to leave its territory so once the dog leaves or starts to run the bear will chase a bit but then stop. This will give YOU time to get away.

For little dogs who are taken to the beach they face a greater danger from the eagles especially the real teeny tiny ones which seem real popular these days. AND IMO there is definitely lots more little tiny dogs now. When I was a kid we rarely saw a little tiny dog here. Most of ours were mid-sized UP. Now the little ones seem way more popular.

[Jayway]

Sounds like an awful place to live LLL, I would so move. We english killed off all the bears and wolves long ago and there not a lot of eagles about. We only have one snake, an adder, that can kill you. Portugal has huge snakes, one of them got to my poorly hen and crushed her, she felt quite boneless, all floppy, when I picked her up after the snake had been separated from its head with the enchada - - -

[Horus]

So are your snakes constrictors then Jay, like pythons?

[LovelyLadyLux]

We get garden or garter snakes here. No worry about snakes on the island but in the mainland where it is warm there are rattlers.

I'd hate to be living in the southern USA - Florida-ish area as there have been so many snakes and reptiles released into the wild that they have really serious problems with HUGE Boas and pythons etc to say nothing of lizards (some - I think Degus that are really not friendly at all)

I guess almost every area has its nasty animals