BEARS WELCOME HUCKLEBERRY TIME
By Park Naturalist F. W. Schmoe

Until recently when visitors came in and asked, "Where can we find one of these bears they tell us about?" we told them to pay a visit to the rubbish pile below the public camp about sunset any evening and were almost certain to see bears.

Now when asked the same question, and it is asked many times each day, we still send them to the auto camp, but we cannot guarantee bears this season of the year. This is huckleberry season and if there is anything that brings more joy to the jolly soul of Bruin that fine ripe berries I have not yet discovered it.

Consequently the bears, big bears, middle-sized bears, and tiny little bears, have moved camp for the season to the regions of dense huckleberry growth, and only spasmodically do they return to their old feeding ground below the camp.

"Jimmy" the dyspeptic yearling cub so well known around Longmire Springs still continues to make regular calls at the government mess hall there according to Naturalist Landis but then Jimmy is not an ordinary bear. Any cub that would desert a camp after being humored and pampered to the extent that Jimmy has would not be a normal bear anyway.

A bear in a huckleberry patch is an amusing sight. Sitting up on his haunches he will reach out for the branches weighted down with the juicy fruit and draw them thru his mouth raking off twigs, leaves, berries and all. This process is continued until all bushes within reach have been stripped but not until then. In fact bruin is so loathe to move his heavy body that he will expend almost any amount of effort and get himself into the most awkward attitudes in reaching for choice berries just beyond his paws, rather than move until he finds it absolutely necessary.