The Pork Butt Black Bear Project


 
M

Mike Batsarisakis

TVWBB Super Fan
Last night I began a pork butt cook with some trepidation due to the fact that there was a black bear in my back yard about a week ago. The consensus on this site appears to be that critters, including bears, would not tamper with the wsm due to the smoke and heat. I have never had a problem with bears on numerous other cooks so my working assumption was that I was not going to have any problems this time. The bear could have easily been present on other overnight cooks which were uneventful. So I prepared a few obstacles around the smoker, had the lights on all night, use the driveway instead of the back yard, and had a radio on all night (dancing to the oldies).The Bear "Barrier"

I didn't see anything unusual until 2:30 a.m. when I went to bed. When I got up at 7:00 a.m., however, the small beach chair had folded down. Obviously, I don't know what did this. My wife thinks it was the wind. My wsm was not knocked over or touched in any way. I hope what I saw last week was an abberation. Time will tell. Mike
 
I laughed.. I cried, I laughed again!

I'm not sure how serious you were in this post, but the sight of a bunch of folding chairs in the way was great.

I just had a vision of a bear sitting in a lawn chair enjoying some tunes as he munched down your pork butt. Pricless.

Josh
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Josh Z.:


I just had a vision of a bear sitting in a lawn chair enjoying some tunes as he munched down your pork butt. Pricless.

Josh </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

And he was even nice enough to fold the chair neatly before he left. (Or maybe Boo Boo did it for him?)
 
Sadly, I am not kidding whatsoever. When I went out to rake the coals at 2:30 a.m., I was clutching a baseball bat and looking over my shoulder. Yes, I admit, it is and was funny. It probably was a stupid idea. The cook came out great however. I used the texas bbq rub. Here is a picutre of it.The Reward

Dave, good idea for a side act: "The Dancing Pork Butt Smoking Bear"
 
I was sort of hoping that you'd WSMed a bear shoulder, even though I knew better from reading your previous post. I'd like to kill a bear and eat it all up. I've never had bear, but I hear that the meat and fat are quite tasty.

D
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jerry N.:
Get a gun. Do you really want to get in a fight with a bear with a baseball bat? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jerry; there's a Cubs/Baseball joke in there somewhere, just dying to come out.
icon_biggrin.gif
 
 
The question is, why was the bear in your yard a couple of weeks ago? Do you have a neighbor who's leaving bird feeders or pet food out? That's what will bring bears around, not a WSM smoke every week or so -- but if they're in the habit of walking through the neighborhood, I wouldn't count on a bear not to upset a WSM if it was habituated to going around humans to find food. That's really the problem: if they're shy of humans, a little caution and discouragement will run them off, but if they're bold, they'll go through quite a lot to get to food.

We had a problem bear last year, mostly caused by one easy dumpster and a neighbor of mine who would not take his feeders in. We got the environmental cops on the restaurant that owned the dumpster, whose owners knew better, and some of us had a talk with the neighbor with the bird feeder. One of my neighbors had the most powerful argument in the form of a four-year-old daughter. So he started taking his feeders in during bear-hungry season, and the next time the bear (with two cubs) did come traipsing into the neighborhood, another neighbor's dogs were out and took off after her. In a straight matchup of dogs vs. bear, she would have won -- she's 350 pounds if she's an ounce -- but a 140-pound rottweiler and 75 pound bulldog would have shredded the cubs, and she evidently decided discretion was the better part of valor. She hasn't been back since.
 
Mary,

I had no clue that a bear would ever show up in my yard. I didn't even think that bears lived around here at all. I have been feeding the birds with my bird feeder for three years now uneventfully. There have been no previous problems with bears in my neighborhood. It wasn't until I actually saw a bear two Sundays ago in the act of taking down and running away with my bird feeder did I realize that "Oh my God... you mean there's a bear in my backyard." I still didn't know if it lived around here or it was just passing through. (By the way the bird feeder has not been replaced nor do I intend to do so during bear season which, by the way is from mid March until November.) I then started to research the black bear population in Massachusetts and found out that in 1972 there were about 100 black bears. Now the population is just over 3,000. Since I thought at the time that it was just a fluke, I decided to go through with my cook. There is now no bird feeder to attact this bear. The only possible attraction is the occasional overnight smoke on the WSM. Since my most recent smoke was 1 week after the incident, I was betting on the fact that this was just a fluke and that if it were to come back, the hot smoker and the smoke would not be appealing to the bear. I don't think the bear came back. I also don't think that an occasional overnight cook or day cook is going to bring it back. My cooking activities have not attracted the bear in the past. I think as long as that bird feeder is down from March 1 to November (Mass wildlife recommends taking the feeder down by April 1st), then I should be okay.
 
I'd wager that you have seen the last of that bear. Sure, they have scary teeth and big claws, but you have stumbled onto a little known bit of bear folklore...They are absolutely terrified of lawn chairs. The native Americans used this to their advantage for centuries before handing down this wisdom to the Pilgrims on the first Thanksgiving. This is why most Thankgiving turkeys are cooked indoors with lawn chairs left outside on the deck to deter bear intruders.
 
Mike, you should be able to put the feeders back out by June at the latest -- by then there's plenty for bears to feed on in the woods, and if they're not used to getting food from people, they won't come visiting. You might have a word with your neighbors, though. Feeders go back in once it starts to get cool in the fall, when the bears are eating everything in sight to get fat for the winter, and can go back out once the bears are denned up in December.
 
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