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Where We Left Off:
The cat detectives uncovered a shocking revelation in crime history involving the mouse named Strauss!
Valkyrie:
The detectives and I haven’t written anything about the black bears and volkolaks since October during the bear hunts and Fat Bear Week. I went back and added the grand total statistics to that post which showed 473 black bears were murdered in New Jersey in October and December in 2024. March 28, 2025, our first ursine friend made an appearance on the trail cameras! Since we hadn’t witnessed any bears coming out of their winter rest in person, we’re counting this footage as our first sighting of the year.
Black bears are the largest land mammal in New Jersey. They are an integral part of the state’s natural heritage and a vital component of healthy ecosystems. —NJDEP website, accessed 08-April-2025
“The government sure loves to toot its own horn about conservation when it encourages vulnerable animal populations to be killed.” Oliver was as a ticked off as I was. He went around to the back entrance of his office and got through to the main doorway where he helped me work on this case.
Gus stretched after jumping down from the bed. His hind in the air displaying a happy and relaxed mood with his tail. He walked over to his test tubes and spun them around to see if there were any treats inside.
“I love chicken. Is there chicken hunting?” Gus appeared to be serious even though he knows full well chickens are part of the agricultural industrial complex as well as small responsible hobby farmers who only take what they need.
I stopped typing and watched him still spinning his test tubes hoping for chicken treats to fly out. I had to get up and refill the puzzle for him. It was only fair. Napping depletes his resources so very much.
“You know there isn’t a chicken hunt, but there is a turkey season.” I dropped two treats into each compartment for him and then put one by Oliver’s front paws.
“Why are we discussing poultry?” Oliver yelled. “We’re supposed to be on a bear case.”
Absolutely true. I made a note to circle back to our turkey discussion for another time. It’s presently April and we’re expecting the signs of Spring. Besides our late-blooming daffodils (they seem to be the slowest in the land), we’ve had a couple of rogue crocuses and a hyacinth. The snowdrops were here too. As pretty as those flowers are, they don’t have long bloom times. The periwinkles and speedwell are carpeting the lawn with polka dots of purple.
Some of the squirrels have been chasing each other like lunatics while the growing pregnant ones ignore them and focus on food. I’m surprised none of them told us when the bears came out of their quasi-hibernation.
“We have three different cameras picking up the same bear on the night noted.” I cast the footage to the large screen for Oliver and Gus to analyze. I sent updated family tree charts to their tablets so we could try and figure out which of our bears or volkolak friends was photographed.
“I don’t see any ear tags,” Oliver noted. “Do those fall off?”
Gus responded, “They can, but they’d feel it—like ripping out a piercing. Ridley was seriously angry about that last year.”
I remembered. There was an afternoon when Gus and I met up with Ridley and the bear was right be afraid of a human. Ridley had both ears tagged. We had notes on a bear with only one ear tag. Unfortunately, I do not possess the hacking skills to find the data on any of the tags. We have to rely solely on our own data collection.
Case Findings:
Gus, Oliver, and the human biographer analyzed various camera footage of the first bear to come through the yard after winter. In the short footage of the subject walking from left to right in the last video, we can see a tan snout. This is more prominent on certain bear creatures. There might also be a slight gait identifier with the rear left foot which, if we’re correct, means this bear is Val (short for Valkyrie).
Case Status: Closed
But were we wrong?
After reviewing more camera footage, it became questionable whether March 28th was the first sighting. There are some new photos retrieved from a different camera. It was a foggy night and that makes it nearly impossible to even see the creature in front of the woodpile.
Could the March 16th photos be a small bear near a wood pile?
Resources:
NJDEP, as accessed on April 8, 2025—Specifically noted in case the word “black” triggers the data on bears to be erased without warning for being diverse.