By Pepper Fisher

SEQUIM – A tiny bear cub that followed a Sequim-area man home during a walk in the woods has been taken in by a rescue center and is doing well.

The story begins on Earth Day, which was Saturday, April 22. Best-selling author Jonathan Evison, who splits his time between his cabin near Sequim and a home on Bainbridge Island, was walking a woodsy trail on DNR land with his wife and daughters, when they heard a strange cry coming from the forest.

Evison says he told his family to wait on the trail while he went into the woods to see what was making all the noise.

“And I got to within about 60 feet of the sound and, sure enough, it was a little tiny bear cub. A tiny little thing, at the base of a fir, and he’s all alone, and he was trying to climb the tree, but he couldn’t even do it. Which I thought was a little strange because usually when momma leaves the cubs, she’ll send the cubs up a tree, and then she’ll range up to 2 miles. The cub, is staying in one place. It was there on my way back on the walk, just crying the whole time, but I decided it was best not to intervene in case momma was going to come back.”

Evison went back the next day to check on the bear cub, and found him, still crying, about a quarter mile from where he’d last seen him.

“And then I found up the hill, there’s the little cub, kind of pinned under a big fallen alder limb, like a pretty good-sized, you know. He was kind of pinned down and underneath it, trying to get out. And so, I had to do something. You know, I wasn’t going to just let nature take its course in this instance. So, I freed the little guy, and he just immediately started following me.”

The little cub followed him all the way to his cabin, which, Evison admits, is not necessarily the safest situation when it comes to momma bears.

“It was a really wet and windy, cold night that night. He’d been wandering around all night crying. It’s a wonder the coyotes didn’t get him, because he just didn’t stop crying once. And so, he followed me down to the trail and pretty much just literally attached himself to my ankle. Just an adorable little guy. But, this is kind of a compromising position to be in, because if momma is around and I’ve got her cub on my ankle, I’m not in a real good spot. But I was pretty certain that momma was not around because, like I said, momma wouldn’t just leave a helpless little cub like that without treeing him.”

Evison says he had heard gunshots in the woods the day before and speculates the cub’s mother may have been killed by poachers. He led the cub into a fenced area at the cabin, gave him a dry place to rest, and called Fish and Wildlife officials. He says no one got back to him over the next two days but, when he posted his story and photos on his Facebook page, he was immediately contacted by someone from the West Sound Wildlife Shelter in Kitsap County.

They drove the little guy, who his daughters named Brave Blackie, to the shelter the next day. He has since been moved to PAWS in Lynnwood, who just happened to have taken in another bear cub, so now he’s got a friend to grow up with until he can hopefully be rewilded in a year or so.

Evison says he is all too aware of the moral dilemma he faced when he allowed the bear to follow him home. He says he was berated online by a wildlife biologist for intervening in nature’s course. But in the end, he feels he did the right thing.

“I find it interesting, this idea that we’re not supposed to intervene. Well, it seems to me, in this case, humanity had already intervened. I found the little guy in a deforested area. There’s a good chance his momma was poached. So, you know, it seems to me that humanity had already intervened in this situation anyway. So, I was just making a bad situation less bad. You know, he’ll be rewilded in a year, if all goes well. And worst possible scenario would be that he would be raised in some sort of wildlife sanctuary, where he’d at least be outside around other bears, and things like that. Worst-case scenario is better than being eaten alive by coyotes, or just dying of starvation out there. So, I think it’s a happy ending. We sure miss the little guy.”

Evison is the author of numerous novels, perhaps most famously his New York Times best seller West Of Here, set in a fictional town called Port Bonita, which the author says is based on the history of Port Angeles and the Olympic Peninsula.

(Banner photos courtesy of Jonathan Evison. Above photo courtesy of West Sound Wildlife Shelter)