This evening, after dinner, Ed Gulley came over to pick up his sculptures from the Open House, as we were loading his truck we all heard a sickening thud from the road in front of the house. I saw a big black Ford truck lurch and pull over, and then I saw a beautiful black bear dragging his hind legs and crawling towards our pasture fence.

The people in the truck pulled over and got out, saw the bear suddenly get up, and they rushed back to their truck and left. They told the police who pulled them over up the road that they had no cell phone and were terrified of the bear. They were elderly, they didn’t know what to do.

It was a pitiful and wrenching sight, that bear dragging himself away from the road,  I could see what a beautiful creature he was. He somehow pulled himself over the fence and crawled into the marsh behind the farmhouse, and then collapse in the tall weeds. We could only see his head reaching up to the sky, and heard some cries of pain, they echoed through the pasture.

The animals were going wild, Chloe raced back and force along the fence – fortunately, that pasture had been closed off, and Lulu and Fanny, guard donkeys both, moved forward in front of the sheep and watched the bear. We got the dogs into the house and I called 911, only the second time in 15 years I have ever done that up here.

Maria and Ed Gulley stayed with the animals. Ed is a farmer and a hunter, and he wanted to stay.

Two sheriff’s deputies responded quickly, the walked out to the pasture and walked through the marsh until they found the bear, they said he looked to be in awful shape unable to stand up, walk, or move much. Wounded animal, especially bears, can be dangerous when wounded, the deputies called for ENCON, the state’s environmental and wildlife police. They said they thought the bear could not be saved or helped, but that was up to ENCON.

They said it was dangerous to get too close, they asked us to stay on the other side of the fence. Ed said if the bear had to be killed, he would take him home, and skin him, salvage any meat, and treat the hide. He said he would keep the feet and the head. It was nothing short of amazing for Ed to be here at that time, and to want to take the bear home in his pickup.

The ENCON officer came and walked out through the tall grass and found the bear. He was, he said, a beautiful young bear, more than 200 pounds, he was trying to make it back to the deep woods. But he couldn’t stand or get up. He was dying. We saw the officer point his shotgun at the bear and fired twice. The bear uttered what biologists call a “death howl,” a kind of goodbye, and then was still. He was killed almost instantly.

It was a poignant, painful sound to hear. Lots of animals have died on our farm, but this was different, a very beautiful young and healthy bear crippled by a big truck.

A car pulled up with people saying they saw the accident, they were animal rights people, they rushed home to get their children. They said they were animal lovers and protectors and were convinced that the bear would be shot for no reason and the children were pleading for his life to be spared, shouting at us and the police to save him.

Farmers go through this all of the time, it was, said the police, almost commonplace. A deputy went over to the car and explained the bear’s injuries and the car sped off. It was troubling to both of us that these people went  home and brought their young children to see the bear die.

We got Red out and moved the animals into the side pasture. We kept Fate in her crate. Ed drove his pickup into the pasture and he and the officers pulled the bear out with a rope, and everyone lifted him up into Ed’s truck. Ed said goodbye and headed home. We are having dinner with the Gulley’s Thursday night and we will have a lot to talk about.

Maria climbed into the truck bed to be with the bear and said goodbye to him. She sat silently and held his paw. The farm is all about life and death, we accept this as part of our lives and the natural world. It was difficult to see this beautiful animal die in such a painful and frightening way. I am haunted by the thought of him crawling through our pasture trying to get back to the woods, the same woods we walk through every morning.

We were grateful for many things.

The deputies handled the incident efficiently and with feeling and care.

The ENCON officer said it was the part of his job he hated the most. We were glad the dogs were not out in the pasture, or the sheep and equines. We were grateful that we had seen the accident and knew that the bear had crawled into the marsh grass, we would not have seen him.

The animals would have grazed in that pasture in the morning, we wouldn’t have known a dying, grievously injured – potentially dangerous – animal was lying out there just a few feet away from them. He would have been very hungry if he had survived until morning.

It was a remarkable thing that Ed was here, that he wanted to take the bear  home. As darkness fell, the police and the ENCON officer left, along with Ed, and Maria and I sat down and had a cup of tea and wondered that we had had another quite remarkable experience.

And we talked about the sadness of the night, we thought of  the bear lying in Ed’s truck bed he  looked so proud and his coat so black and shiny.  We both touched and noticed his big and soft paws. We wondered that an animal who lived in the woods could look so shiny and clean, almost like a big stuffed animal.

I told Maria I was sorry he never made it back to the woods, and had to die in a strange pasture.

We smiled and toasted one another with out tea cups. This is our life, we said. This is the life we chose.