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The bears were good neighbors to Alaskan Howard Meyer until theywere not. Now he confesses to being a bit paranoid about wanderingaround his idyllic, edge-of-wilderness property just north of thestate's largest city. "I have no desire to go hiking around without a couple differentpeople with me with guns," he said Tuesday. Meyer, a 57-year-old attorney, was mauled by a grizzly bear less than a half mile from his suburban Eagle River home inmid-May. The attack on the edge of a well-developed area just northof Anchorage lasted only seconds, but Meyer is still recovering --physically and emotionally. Three holes the bear punched in his side, along with two more inhis foot, are healing. But Meyer thinks the bear might have donesome bone-crunching damage the doctors missed in the immediateaftermath. "I've really been having some problems with my ribs," hesaid. He thinks they might be cracked. He's planning to get moreX-rays. "He (the bear) beat the shit out of me," the attorney said. Nearby moose carcass Not without reason, at least from the bear's point of view. It isnow believed the animal was defending a food cache. AlaskaDepartment of Fish and Game biologists found a dead moose no morethan 150 yards from where Meyer was attacked, he said. Meyer said area wildlife biologist Jessy Coltrane spotted it whenshe tried to guide him back to the scene of the attack to look forhis glasses. "I didn't see the moose carcass," Meyer added. "Shespotted it, and she said, 'Just forget your glasses, and let's getout of here.'" Meyer has given up on the glasses. "I already went and bought a newpair," he said. He has no plans to go back to look for the oldones, now or in the near future though wildlife biologists say itis doubtful the bear is in the area anymore. Bears roam sizeablehome ranges, and they don't stay in one place long unless they areon a good food source like the carcass of a moose. It usually onlytakes a few days to consume a carcass, however, and then they moveon. "I don't know if the bear killed a moose or found a winter kill,"Meyer said. Anchorage and the surrounding area saw records snows over the past winter. Some moose, struggling to move and findadequate food in deep snow, ended up dying. Carcasses are stillemerging as the snow at higher elevations melts. The snows were only starting to melt when Meyer went out to explorethe old homestead he owns on the edge of the wilderness. "I've got66 acres," he said, "and in the back it borders on the Chugach(State Park). It's pretty -- I would put it -- remote. It doesn'thave a lot of foot traffic." One of the nation's largest stateparks, the Chugach blankets a half-million-acres of wildernessnorth and east of Anchorage. Meyer said he left his house on the edge of this wild, bear-filledplace to investigate what appeared to be an old homestead trail toa nearby creek. "Earlier in the day, I'd found an old trail ...where the (original homestead) family would go down to the creekand get water because they didn't have water or electricity. I'mpretty sure that's the trail I found because it was more than agame trail. You can only see it early (this time) in the year ...because otherwise it's so overgrown." What Meyer didn't know as he set off along this trail was that itwould take him dangerously close to a grizzly. He knew there werebears around. "I've seen black bears in my yard; brown bears, too,"he said. "I had one playing around with a hose in my yard onetime." Video of that bear has appeared on YouTube . "That's my yard," Meyer said. "I've seen occasional glimpses ofbears at other times, but that's about it. There's been moose killsand stuff (in the neighborhood) where people have heard a beargetting a moose. So I knew they re generally around.". I am an expert from ledflood-lighting.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Waterproof LED Flood Lights , LED Par Lights, T8 LED Tube Light,and more.
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