Dave Dial writes, Hey RMSO:
This is no doubt a coincidence but it was fun
while it lasted!
In mid-October I was out early with my dogs in a not well
traveled, if at all these days, part of the western slope of the Sangre de
Cristo mountains, just north of Valdez, NM (Carson National Forest). Given this
was new territory to us, in his excitement, my youngest dog kept running ahead
a little further than I liked.
We'd been traveling up the north side of an arroyo and found
some old pipes perhaps used to carry snow melt down to the high desert below at
some point in time. There we came across the remnants of an old road
used for pipe maintenance I'd guess and began following it up the mountain. We
were at around 8,000' give or take and it was pretty heavily forested.
I was trying to be as quiet as possible hoping we'd see some
wildlife but when my young Husky ran ahead one too many times, I raised my
voice and literally growled at him, "Puppy, slow down!"
Within moments we were met with a blast of sound from the
trees just above us that was a cross between a coyote on steroids howling and a
siren. I could not believe the volume and it was close!
My first thought, aside from the obvious "What the
hell!?!" was, "Everyone in Taos County had to have heard that!"
My youngest dog ran back toward me and my older dog, who I
had on a leash, lunged forward wanting to go after "it" and weighing
90lbs, it was all I could do to hold him back while this critter repeatedly
blasted us with its calls.
I eventually had to pin my dog to the ground and during the
process the animal making the sound began moving away from us at a
rather impressive rate. However, it continued to sound the
"alarm" as it traveled well up into the mountains, the howls
eventually fading away.
Following that bizarre vocal incident, I set up a game
camera within a mile of that spot and have captured images of deer, coyotes,
foxes, bears and then this one.
Regressing a moment: I sent you an email asking about what
I've heard some folks call a "mouth pop". Well, when we were
setting up the camera, something was above us in the arroyo we were in and I
heard a sound very much akin to someone pulling a cork out of a wine bottle.
Once I had the camera set up, I found the bears occasionally
moved it around or loosened the strap it was affixed to the tree with but the
subject in image #22 (attached) opened the camera, causing the lens/motion
sensor to be facing toward the tree resulting in no more images being captured
following that.
By that I mean, when I checked the camera the morning of
October 24th, it was open, there were 22 images on it and this is image #22 so
I "assume" this is what opened it!?!
The camera was more or less eye high to me, I'm 5'11"
and if I use my "imagination" I see a 6'+ mammal directly in front of
the camera (looks symmetric), the lower lip just visible top center (?) and
just below that a chin and chest.
Needless to say, I'm just having trouble turning this into a
bear so I've been bouncing the photo off folks like you who have far more
experience "deciphering" these things than I ever will!
