Isaac's Blog Post

Black Bear Adventure

In May, my mom signed me up for a week-long camp in the Pocono mountains during the first week of August to learn about black bears. I was super excited and began to do some quick research on this subject. I learned that black bears are good at climbing trees, they are great swimmers,  and they have an excellent sense of smell and hearing. I was interested to learn more about black bears and I felt excited to go to the camp because I could actually experience black bears in the wild. Perhap, I would also be able to get close to a black bear. Thinking about this, I also felt nervous not, because I would be away from my home, but I would be in the wild next to danger. Black bears can easily kill a person.

On August 2nd, my mom drove me for three hours and thirty minutes to the camp. During the car ride, we talked about what the camp would be like and that I should have fun in the camp. After talking for some time, I was able to go on my phone for an hour. On my phone, I watched videos about black bears and the time passed quickly. As we approached the destination, I thought about the camp and looked out the window. I saw large mountains covered in trees for miles. Then, we arrived at camp and I unloaded my luggage ready for my adventure.

During the first two days, there were many activities to get to know the other campers. We hiked together, ate together, and played many fun games. We spent a lot of time in an outdoor classroom learning about black bears and their natural habitat. I was ready and excited for the third day when we would be traveling deep into the woods to visit the forest ranger. He would be showing us some habitats of black bears but without seeing any to be safe.

On the third day, we left at 6:00 am in the morning. We walked four miles going up a mountainside and then down into a large valley of trees. It was a massive forest and the weather was sunny and humid. While we were walking in the forest, we all heard a crying noise coming from behind a tree. We walked over to the source of the noise quietly and saw that it was an injured baby black bear. His right paw was bloody and seemed broken badly. He also seemed very weak and close to death. Looking at him, I was very worried because his mother may be coming soon and would be extremely angry to see her child in this bad shape. Maybe she would blame us!

We were very fortunate because the forest ranger arrived and knew what to do. He called for immediate assistance and evacuated us back to the camp. I was happy because it meant that we would be taking a bus back and not hiking. I was also happy because it meant that a very angry momma bear who can climb, swim, smell and hear wouldn’t be meeting us deep in the forest!