“You guys aren’t going to believe this,” my mom texted the family group chat. “A bear ate my sewer hose! I had to call wildlife rangers. I’m so embarrassed.”

2019, my mom’s third year as a volunteer in the park for the Great Smoky Mountains Nation Park. Prior to her time in the Smoky’s, we had been weekend camping in state and national parks for a few years. She had become interested in being a camp host somewhere. She was retired and looking for something fun to fill her next chapter. She found a whole host of volunteer opportunities that matched her interests, talents, and skill set through both state and national park websites. She put a few volunteer applications out there, and lo and behold, found herself living in her camper in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with black bears as her neighbors.

“How’s the black bear situation going?” was the first thing I asked when my mom made her weekly phone call. Cell and WiFi signals were spotty at best where she camped. Short texts during the week when she found a decent signal, and a weekly phone call or two on her days off was about all the communication we had for 3 months every fall during my mom’s time in the mountains.

“Well, they caught a mama and her cubs right on my site, gave them a good health check, then released them a few miles away where bears, and campers, will be safe.”

She proceeded to tell me the whole story. As she was driving up to her camper, she could see water spraying 15 feet up in the air coming from somewhere around her camper. “I knew whatever I was coming up on wasn’t going to be good.”

She got out of her car and found her sewer hose detached from her camper, chewed up, and spread out in the woods like a slinky. “I knew that was a bear’s handy work and that I needed to contact the rangers. I was so nervous walking around my camper, I did not want a run in with a bear, but I needed to shut off the water and check for any more damage”

To add to my poor mother’s anxiety, to get to the water to shut it off, she had to open her water box where the valves were, and where copperheads liked to hangout. The copperheads liked to eat the other giant bugs and rodents that hung out in the dark, damp water valve box. “I hated getting into that box. It required a flashlight and thorough critter check before sticking your hand down there.”

“I shut the water off, then I checked all around the camper, inside and out, hoping not to find the bear, or anymore damage. Luckily, the only damage was to the sewer hose.” She was glad the sewer hose wasn’t much more than 20 feet into the woods to retrieve, “if the snakes and bears don’t get you in those woods, the spiders and ticks will. I quickly grabbed the hose and got out of there.”

“I called the wildlife rangers. They were out in about 2 hours.” Apparently they were already familiar with this bear family that was causing havoc around the campground. “They named one of the cubs Hemmorrhoid because I guess he’s a pain in the ass, always getting them called out.”

When wildlife rangers showed up, they could tell by the bear scat around her site that the bear family was still around, so they set up a live bear trap, putting a can of tuna fish in it to bait the bears. “Mama bear was trapped by the next day, and her cubs just hung out on my site, staying close to their mom, playing up the trees and chewing up my chairs, until the wildlife rangers came out again.”

“It was really interesting to see the wildlife rangers at work. After they trapped all the bears, they did a health check on them all, weighing them, tagging them, and taking bloodwork. It helps them track the health and history of the bears in the area. Once they were done, they drove them about 40 miles away, and released them. The only thing that was hurt in the whole ordeal was my sewer hose!”

My mom said she learned a lot that day. “I learned that I was living in their home, the bears and other wildlife, and that I have to be responsible and aware of my surroundings, not only for my safety, but for theirs as well. I also learned that black bears love plastic!”