New Mexico rancher Dean Dommer estimates that he’s had over 100 peaceable black bear sightings within the final yr on his property close to Glorieta Go within the Santa Fe Nationwide Forest.
He chalks it as much as a latest wildfire within the space, the biggest in state historical past, that burned over 340,000 acres and displaced swarms of wildlife about 40 miles east of his property. These circumstances, mixed with the pond and hummingbird feeders positioned proper close to his home, make Dommer’s 50-acre plot a form of black bear paradise.
So when acquaintance Paul Georgoulis sprinted into Dommer’s home at 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 11 with a bloody gash throughout his head, Dommer thought he was dreaming. Georgoulis was shouting via the dripping mess that he’d been bitten by a bear whereas out “cowboy tenting” on the ranch.
Georgoulis, 24, ended up sleeping on Dommer’s property after plans to drive from Santa Fe to Texas’ Palo Duro Canyon State Park fell via. He’d visited Dommer’s place a yr prior and referred to as to ask if he may spend the evening once more. Dommer welcomed him whereas warning that it was additionally bear season. He discovered a spot off the crushed “bear paths” that overlay the property for Georgoulis to put his sleeping bag on. However after the 2 chatted late into the evening, Georgoulis ended up sleeping in a distinct spot.
“I didn’t see the place he camped till after the assault, however it seems he ended up by accident tenting proper on a bear path,” Dommer says.
Georgoulis isn’t precisely unprepared to sleep exterior. He used to work as a backcountry counselor on the Philmont Scout Ranch, the Boy Scouts of America’s largest excessive journey camp positioned within the Sangre de Cristo vary in northeastern New Mexico. He sleeps exterior incessantly, however this was the primary time an evening of open-air tenting led to catastrophe.
“I may hear it sniffing like a canine, so I sort of froze up and didn’t do something for a cut up second, after which it put its enamel round my head and began to chunk,” Georgoulis advised Outside Life. “All I may assume was ‘nicely, I’ve two choices proper now: maintain letting it do what it’s doing or scream as loud as you’ll be able to.’ So I attempted screaming and it let go of me. It did that lumbering stroll away that bears do once they’re scared.”
As soon as the bear cleared the scene, Georgoulis made a break for Dommer’s home.
“He confirmed up at my door and he was clearly distraught and sort of bleeding profusely from the top,” Dommer says.
“It was like one thing out of the film Deliverance,” Georgoulis chuckles. “I used to be in my underwear, bleeding like a caught pig, screaming and working at this log cabin in the course of nowhere.”
Dommer instantly went to retrieve Georgoulis’ belongings from the scene of the crime solely to find that the bear had dragged the sleeping bag away.
“However we had greater fish to fry at the moment, when it comes to assessing the severity of the wound and figuring out whether or not he wanted to go to the ER,” Dommer says. “We got here to the conclusion that as a result of it was a wild animal chunk it might should be cleaned. So we hurried to the ER and he obtained in fairly rapidly.”
The outcomes of the CT scan had been miraculously adverse. One good cleansing and 16 staples later, Georgoulis was prepared for launch. They went again to Glorieta, the place Georgoulis waited for his mom to reach from Dallas. In the meantime, Dommer went again out to the improvised campsite to trace down the sleeping bag.
“The bear had carted the empty sleeping bag down the hill and off into slightly space the place it may perform a little deeper investigation into the smells it was smelling,” Dommer says. “I discovered the sleeping bag perhaps 30 yards from the incident website.”
Geourgoulis says the New Mexico Division of Fish and Recreation reached out to him concerning the assault and that he was prepared to supply data for statistical functions, however that in any other case he and Dommer averted reaching out to wildlife brokers. Neither felt that the bear behaved in an overtly aggressive method.
Their concept? It smelled Georgoulis’ shampoo wafting from underneath his Buff gaiter and determined the massive lump on the bottom was price investigating. Georgoulis notes that the bear immediately darted when he opened his mouth. Dommer feels at peace with the bears that frequent his property.
‘I’ve all the time welcomed the wildlife,” Dommer says. “To me, they had been right here first.”
Cheryl Georgoulis remembers getting the decision no mom ever desires to get.
“It was that dreaded cellphone name in the course of the evening,” she sighs. “To Paul’s credit score, he began it off with ‘Mother, I’m okay.’ However then he adopted it up with ‘I’ve been bitten within the head by a bear.’ It’s like listening to he was struck by lightning.”
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The staples have since been faraway from Georgoulis’ scalp. Now the outdoorsman should determine how one can return to the woods with out concern of bear encounters getting in his manner.
“If somebody had been to ask me to go on a tenting journey tomorrow, I’d completely say ‘sure.’ However I’ve but to really see how I behave in that atmosphere,” Georgoulis says. “I used to be afraid to fall asleep on Thursday evening. If I ever have a canine that wakes me up by sniffing in my ear, I’ve no clue how I’m going to react to that, on condition that I used to be afraid to fall asleep in a lodge room in inside metropolis Santa Fe.”
