At their wit’s end with a black bear that refused for hours to budge from a tree in Golden, Colorado, wildlife agents tried hazing it by blasting Black Sabbath’s legendary heavy metal anthem “Iron Man” from airborne drone speakers.
But all it apparently did was make the bear a fan of the iconic band from Birmingham, England, often credited with inventing the metal music genre.
“We don’t know if perhaps that bear was like, ‘OK, I can just sit here and listen to Black Sabbath for a while,’ but it still wouldn’t move,” Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) Northeast region spokeswoman Kara Van Hoose told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
Colorado has a robust population of black bears, and they’re plentiful in the Golden area on the Western edge of the Front Range of the Rockies, Van Hoose said.
CPW generally lets the bears be. The agency intervenes only when they come into town and start raiding garbage cans and such.
“We try as much as possible to keep our hands off the bears unless human safety is threatened,” she said.
Waiting Game
On May 15, a bear was reported in Golden, so Van Hoose and other CPW went to the scene, joined by Golden police officers.
“It had settled in to this tree in a populated area right next to the Colorado School of Mines campus,” she said.
“It wasn’t a full-grown adult bear, but it wasn’t a little yearling either. It was probably in about that 2-year age range,” said Van Hoose, adding that agents weren’t able to determine if it was a male or female.
The plan was to wait for the bear to come down out of the tree on its own, and then wildlife agents and cops could haze it in the direction they wanted it to go — back out of town.
“We waited for maybe three hours. It came down and started heading in the right direction. Then it saw something it didn’t like and went up another tree,” she said. “So we waited about five more hours.”
At long last, the bear came down again.
“It started running in the right direction, but then it saw a human maybe a little too close, and it took off up another tree,” Van Hoose said. “By this time, the bear was agitated and ‘huffing,’ we weren’t sure what to do next.”
Crank Up The Sabbath
The Golden Police Department’s drone operator was on the scene, and he made a suggestion.
“He said, ‘We have external speakers on our drone. Do you want to try hazing the bear with music?’ And I was in charge of the music. I started cycling through my playlist,” Van Hoose said.
“At first I though about Metallica,” she said, naming another iconic metal band. “I wanted something that started off kind of intense and would seem weird to the bear, something not like anything the bear had ever heard before.
“Then I saw ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath come up on my playlist.”
It seemed perfect.
Surely the song’s opening would unnerve the bear — with guitarist Tony Iommi’s unearthly string-bending, followed by frontman Ozzy Osborne’s distorted voice boldly declaring, “I am Iron Man!”
But it didn’t work.
The bear simply wouldn’t move, and also didn’t seem at all troubled by the heavy metal sonic assault.
In fact, one wildlife official can be heard on a video of the bear getting an earful of Sabbath observing that, “if he starts banging his head, we have a problem.”=
Out of options, the humans decided to back off and monitor the bear.
A few hours later, it climbed down the tree and ambled off on its own, going exactly where they’d wanted it to all along, Van Hoose said.
Probably Not A Wyoming Tactic
Some experienced Wyoming outdoorsmen said trying to haze a bear with one of the greatest metal rifts of all time probably isn’t a tactic they’d try.
Retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody is of an older generation and not a fan of the music genre that Black Sabbath gave birth to.
“I do not know how effective heavy metal music is at getting bears out of trees, but it would sure work on me,” he told Cowboy State Daily, adding that tranquilizer darts have proven effective on bears.
“The typical procedure is to hit the bear in the hip with a drug and have men with a strong tarp underneath him to catch him when the bear falls,” Neal said.
Avid hunter and conservationist Zach Key of La Barge, Wyoming, is more fond of Black Sabbath, and told Cowboy State Daily that he gives CPW kudos for at least trying.
“Good stuff! I guess whatever works,” he said.
He added that as Wyoming’s grizzlies continue to expand their range, he’s concerned about them starting to show up in towns. But he’s definitely “not sure” whether hitting a grizzly with a heavy dose of “Iron Man” would be a good idea.
Van Hoose said she’s still willing to try hazing critters with music, should the need arise again.
“I may choose something more annoying next time. Maybe ‘Baby Shark,’” she said, referencing the extremely repetitive, popular children’s tune. “We’re open to feedback as far as what annoying songs we should play.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
