looduskalender.ee

 

A friend found a bear den in autumn and decided to go and have another look at it. This was on 30.12.2014 and it was about one o’clock in the day. The den is in Virumaa, on the territory of the present Lüganuse municipality and in a spot that the locals know as the Karumurd (Bear Slaying). The place deserves its name, access is difficult and it is far from human settlements. We also saw that none of today’s phone operators had a cover that  reached the place well. The weather was overcast and tended towards change. The wind was blowing from the south-west and the more towards evening the more snow fell – the forest was snowy, roads had snowdrifts. 

 

We actually got quite close with my friend’s car, so that there was maybe half a kilometre left to walk. We had walked half of it when we came across wolf tracks. Quite fresh and they had at least been three. The tracks headed  precisely towards where we knew that the den was. We started to look for the den but did not find it at once.

 

But we did find fresh wolf tracks everywhere and also resting places. In most of the resting places there was also blood on the snow, so that they had recently tucked in on someone. There were many tracks, fresh as well as older. We found one place where a wolf had run away in great leaps, so they could be very close to us. Resting places could be 12 altogether. And then we found the bear den. The sleeping spot under spruces, and branches had been broken. But we were not all that interested in it any longer, our thoughts were already on the wolf paths. We took some photos and then went along the tracks to see what the wolves had been doing. We hoped to find the remains of the prey animal but regrettably that stayed unfound.

 

There were many tracks of different ages, a couple of urinating spots and bloody lays. Tracks were really many, often together on the same path, going  forward as well as coming back. We decided to give up more searching and to stumble homewards. We were still lucky, three days earlier 10 centimetres of snow fell and in the evening of 30.12 there were quite strong snowdrifts, and to top it all, on 31.12 thaw and the snow fell from the trees on the ground. So today there would have been nothing to look for. But it was a splendid and memorable trip.

 

This much then about viewing a bear den. 31.12.2014