Black Bear Living: A Woman’s Transformative Story
- Bears are amazing sentient beings with unique personalities.
- Trina Moyles: My first encounter with a black bear was in 1990, when I was five. My father, a wildlife biologist, brought home an orphaned cub whose mother-and...
- Years later, I worked as a wildfire lookout in northern Alberta, scanning for smoke.
Bears are amazing sentient beings with unique personalities. Each individual has a life that’s valuable to them, their families, and even to us humans who bother to learn who they are beyond being misjudged as dangerous beasts.1 That’s why I was excited to read Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival by Trina Moyles.It’s a well-researched, personal memoir that moves past prejudice and fear to reveal the essence of these frequently enough-maligned keystone species-animals deeply affected by both the oil economy and direct harm from people.Here’s what Moyles had to say about her book.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Black Bear?
Trina Moyles: My first encounter with a black bear was in 1990, when I was five. My father, a wildlife biologist, brought home an orphaned cub whose mother-and possibly siblings-had been killed in a logging accident. Her mother was crushed by equipment in her den. The cub spent one night with our family before going to a zoo. That experience,and an awareness of the pressures bears face,stayed with me.
Years later, I worked as a wildfire lookout in northern Alberta, scanning for smoke. In 2019,I was stationed in a dense wildlife corridor. During my first summer,I had close encounters with a confident mother bear and her two yearlings. She didn’t act afraid of people,like I’d been taught. I tried yelling,an airhorn,even rubber bullets. Nothing worked. They stayed.
I didn’t want the bear harmed, so I changed my approach. I started asking different questions, like why was she there? I realized the habitat around my tower offered a safe space for mother bears-a buffer from male bears. Over time, I watched one of her cubs, Osa, grow into an adult and eventually become a mother herself. I learned to recognise them as individuals, each with a distinct personality.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
TM: this book is for anyone who loves stories about relationships-