Butch the Koolau Bear

Date: 3 Dec 1997 16:35:14 GMT
From: Norman Roberts <nroberts@hawaii.edu>
Subject: Butch, the Koolau Bear

While on the Ka'a'wa Valley Hike last August, there came a point at which
the grazing cattle turned as one and stared menacingly at us as we passed
nearby.  One of the hikers expressed relief that there were no large,
wild animals in Hawaii.  What old timer could resist a straight line like
that!  "But there have been," I said.  "There used to be a black bear
that roamed both sides of the Koolaus from Maunawili to Pupukea and back
to Moanalua."

My statement was greeted with expressions of polite, sheer, and stark
disbelief.  "Isn't that just a legend?" I was asked.  "It probably is
now," I replied.  "Is he still around?" asked another hiker.  "Probably
not.  Bears live 20 to 25 years, and he was last seen in 1970."  "Did
they ever find his body?" asked a particularly skeptical hiker.  "No," I
replied, "but there are lots of reports of sightings and bear signs, most
by reliable observers."

The subject dropped because by this time we were starting up "that hill."

For some time, I've been attempting to locate as much information as is
easily available about Butch and his adventures.  There ought to be a
story there.  Maybe there already is.  I think I have seen a children's
book about a little lost bear in Hawaii.  It would probably have come out
twenty or more years ago after a feature article on Butch appeared in the
Advertiser.

The bear facts are as follows:

Sometime around the Ides of March and St. Patrick's day in 1956, Butch,
an eighteen month old American Black Bear cub pulled up his stake and
escaped from Al "Whitey" Jensen's animal farm in Heeia Kea, near Kaneohe.

Jensen boarded animals used for entertainment and other commercial
purposes, and there were usually a variety of exotic (to Hawaii) trained
animals at his farm.  He had recently acquired two bear cubs, Butch and
Sis.  He and his trainer Jim Woods had been working with the cubs.
Butch, apparently, learned fast.  Both Jensen and Woods commented on the
bear's intelligence.

The bears were secured by a chain attached to a stake and to a chain
collar around their necks.  These collars had an extra link, secured by a
master snap link, to allow for expansion as the animals grew larger.
Butch and Sis got on very well according to Trainer Jim Woods.

But something happened, and one night Butch broke loose from his stake
and took off into the bush, trailing his chain from his collar.

Apparently Jensen was not terribly concerned.  He expected Butch to come
back to a regular food supply, female companionship, and regular
grooming.  No animal trailing a six foot or longer chain could get very
far.  The chain was bound to snag on a root or get caught in the rocks.
The bear's freedom wouldn't last very long.

According to the newspaper reports, Butch did not stray very far from
Jensen's farm.  He came around at night looking for something to eat,
cleverly eluding all the ingenious traps Jensen and Woods had set to
catch him.  There were signs that he had visited Sis on several
occasions.  The female bear evidently wasn't interested in a life in the
wild because she made no attempt to escape to join Butch.

The bear had been free for six months before the story got reported in
the papers.  Then for the next year there appeared regular accounts of
Butch's activities and his owner's attempts to recapture him.  These
articles are written in a whimsical style, poking good natured fun at the
humans and expressing admiration for Butch.

At one time there were 150 men from Schofield, the Army's Search and
Rescue Force, and two helicopters searching the area for Butch.
According to the newspaper accounts M/Sgt Allen C. Wheeler and his men
ran across the bear several times, but Butch always eluded them.  Sgt.
Wheeler said, "He's too slippery for us.  There are too many places to
hide.  The area is thick.  We could pass right by him and never know it."

At this time there were large numbers of wild dogs all over Oahu.
According to Sgt Wheeler, they would hear the dogs barking, go to the
location, and there would be Butch.

None of the newspaper articles make any mention of anybody seeing Butch's
collar or the chain attatched to it.  This fact makes me think that Butch
must have got the chain caught early on, and by clawing at the snap link,
eventually got it open, expanding the collar, which he then slipped out
of.

During the fall of 1956  Jensen and Woods hit upon the bright idea of
staking Sis out in the area where Butch was roaming.  They figured Butch
would come to Sis and they'd trap him.  It didn't work.  Butch was too
intelligent to be taken in by a chained female.

About this time Woods reported that as Butch grew, the chain collar would
gradually cause his death.  The chain would get tight, rub the neck raw
which would then get infected and the infection would kill him.  Other
experts thought that the tight collar would eventually strangle the bear.

By December 1956 the papers reported that Butch had not been seen for
five weeks.  There was speculation that he was already dead because of
the tight collar.  By January 1957 the search for Butch ceased.  Bob
Krauss reported in his column the difficulties the search teams
encountered.

Quoting Sgt Wheeler, he wrote, "We have too much help.  Pig hunters and
their dogs just chase him into another area and we have to start all over
again.  It's a real jungle there, swamp, high grass, trees, bamboo,
guavas."  Jensen stated that volunteer civillian hikers had come out
scared.  "We need experienced people or someone will get lost."

A member of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club was quoted as saying
that the area was spooky and easy to get lost in.  I'm not familiar with
the area, but I'm not at all surprised that the bear easily eluded the
searchers, many of whom were probably reluctant and others just plain
ignorant.

None of the accounts reveal what the searchers expected to do when they
finally cornered the bear.  Jensen and Woods probably had a plan.  In an
interview Jensen indicated that Butch knew them and once he was cornered,
they could get him.

Krauss's column was the only article that expressed a decided lack of
sympathy for Butch.  Wrote Krauss, who admitted he was no animal lover,
"I'm wondering if it might not be time to quit chuckling over Butch as a
symbol of a revolt against civilization.  Maybe it would be kinder to
shoot him and get it over with.  Up to now chasing Butch has been
described as a sort of combination Snipe hunt and a Sunday school picnic.
 I'm afraid it's just the opposite.  The area in which he operates is
jungle: guava, grass 12 feet high, lantana, swamp, nearly impenetrable
bamboo forest.  You're lucky to come back out at all, much less with Butch."

But before you can shoot a bear, you have to see him;  and you have to
see him long enough to get him in your rifle sights and pull the trigger.
 And you want to be sure you can get off a second shot just in case the
first one doesn't get him.  I don't think anybody caught more than a
glimpse of Butch's back or tail as he slipped into thicker growth.  In my
experience bears are not seen unless they want to be seen.  And if the
Search and Rescue people, whose business it is to find what they go
looking for, couldn't get close to him, who could?

March 9, 1957, the Advertiser reported that residents of Palolo had heard
bear-like growls, and dogs gave chase to an animal that  had attacked a
garbage can.  Mrs Jean Sasaki of a Palolo Ave. address said dogs chased
the animal to the crest of the hill on the Ewa side of Palolo Valley.  No
one actually saw the animal, but Mrs. Sasaki said it did not sound like a
dog or a pig.  She reported that for a week the animal had been in the
area, but this was the first time it had come so far down the valley.

On May 15, 1957, William M. Shields of a Kailua address reported that at
10 a.m. he saw Butch on the Maunawili side of the Kailua cut off road, a
quarter mile on the Kailua side of the junction with Pali Road.  I'm not
sure just where this location might be.  I didn't arrive until 1958 and
didn't get around much until later.  Maybe an older timer than I can tell
where Shields saw Butch, perched on a bluff above Kailua cut off,
watching the cars go by.

The area is described as brush land with guava trees, and Norfalk pine,
not as dense as the area he had previously roamed.  Evidently Butch was
on the move.

Butch was supplementing his diet of guavas, roots, grubs, and whatnot
with raiding the Kaneohe dump and an occasional garbage can.  When
interviewed about this time Owner Jensen said, "If he's been eating well,
he could be 125 pounds by now.  Any other bear would have been sleeping
in somebody's bedroom by now, but not this one.  He's shy, extremely
clever, and capable of taking care of himself."  He added that  Butch was
worth $2000 because of his training.  "It's too bad," Jensen said, "He's
a terrific animal.  It's too bad."

There are no more newspaper reports of Butch until December 12, 1960.
Marine Gunnery Sergeant Gus P. Lass, Jr. said that three weeks previously
he and 40 companions saw a black bear in the Koolau mountains.  "He was
walking along a stream, minding his own business, and eating guavas.  500
yards away.  Four feet high, walking on all fours.  In good health."

It's the 500 yards bit that bothers me here.  That's over a third of a
mile.  I know marine gunnery sergeants are pretty capable people, but to
identify a bear at that distance and estimate his height with any
accuracy is pushing the envelope.  No mention is made of binoculars, but
with the unaided eye, not even Daniel Boone nor my Uncle Charlie could
make a positive identification.

Besides, I don't think there are many places where you can get that field
of vision.  The next day's follow up article presents some different
facts.  This time it's ten marines and the distance is 2000 feet.  The
animal is described as about the size of a large dog.  Frankly, it's
getting difficult to tell what the marines saw or thought they saw.  Or
did the reporter scramble his notes.  Or did anybody care anymore about
the facts?

Harry Whitten, long time Star Bulletin reporter on nature and the
environment wrote up an interview with Al Jensen as a followup.  Jensen
said, "If he's alive and behaving himself, as he seems to have, I'd favor
leaving him alone to become a legend.  Won't do any harm if you leave him
alone.  Wild bears aren't dangerous.  It's the tame ones that are
dangerous.  A wild bear won't come to you; he'll always try to get away.
He may live to 20, 25 years if left alone."

At this time Jensen still had Sis, the female bear.  He speculated that
while bears wander around a lot, they are apt to stay in one area if
there is food and water.  Jensen said he wouldn't try to catch Butch
unless there were more sightings to pinpoint the area.  "If we couldn't
catch him in '56, it won't be any easier now,"

And so Butch became a legend in his own time.  There are no more news
stories about him for ten years, but during this period sightings were
frequently reported to the police and the newspapers.  A hunter reported
finding bear tracks in Waimalu Valley which he photographed.  A hiker
reported seeing a bear above Aiea.  This same hiker reported seeing Butch
on the Pupukea Summit trail.

Honolulu Zoo Director Paul Breeze [1960] speculated that Butch was
probably dead, if not from the collar, then probably pig hunters had
dispatched and eaten him and kept quiet about it.  "I like the idea of a
bear in the woods." Breeze said in an interview.  "In fact, I tell that
to people.  But it really isn't very likely any more."

And then in November, 1970,  James Malcolm, from Schofield, while hiking
the Waimano Trail with the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club, said he saw
a bear about thirty feet down the trail from him.  Malcolm came from New
Hampshire and could be expected to know a bear when he saw one.  He said
the bear would have been five and a half feet tall if he had stood up.
They looked at each other briefly whereupon the bear went up the
mountain, as they are supposed to do, according to the nursery song.
Malcolm hurried along the trail to catch up with the other hikers.

When I read the account in the Star Bulletin that evening, I announced to
my boys (aged ten and eight at that time) that come Saturday, we would go
looking for bear tracks.  Neither seemed very excited about it.  [When I
asked number one son the other day if he remembered the hunt, he said,
"No."  So much for corroboration, but I remember quite distinctly.]

We started out about seven in the morning and hiked the Waimano Trail
from the entrance.  At the point described by Malcolm in the newspaper
article I found where something had gone up the hill, but there was
nothing that I could call a bear track in evidence.  Nor did I really
expect to find any.  We hiked on to the dam where we had a swim, cooked
our lunch, relaxed, had another swim, and then hiked out.

After a period of heavy rain the following spring [1971], we hiked to the
dam one Saturday morning.  It took us about three hours to get there.  In
those days before the dam washed out, there was a little sand beach at
the far end of the pond, and it was here on that day, I found what I am
pretty certain were bear tracks.

Beyond the sand beach in the campsite area I discovered a rotting log
that had been torn apart.  Some distance beyond was a kukui tree that had
some pretty convincing claw marks.  While I admit that an enterprising
Boy Scout could have set the scene with a plaster cast and wire "claws,"
I like to think that Butch had passed that way.  My sons were more
interested in swimming than bear track hunting so instead of looking for
more tracks, we hiked back home.

The last newspaper article about Butch appeared in the Advertiser on July
2, 1975.  It is essentially a summary article based on previously
published articles.  There had been no reports of Butch since Malcolm's
in 1970.  It was about ninteen and a half years since Butch had escaped.
He had been eighteen months old at the time.  If he was still alive, he
was a lonely old bear.  In all probability he had been long dead.

Zoo Director Jack Throp [1975] speculated that a number of reported
sightings had probably been wild pigs. If you only heard something moving
through the brush or merely caught a glimpse of something black
disappearing into a thicket, you couldn't really be sure what you'd seen
or heard.  And even a mongooses can make a lot of noise when they don't
think there's anything around to bother them.

This account is mostly based on old newspaper reports which give the
outline of the story with the names and dates.  There are probably more
details to be found in police blotters and officer's reports.  There are
most likely permit applications on file wherever the official city/county
records are kept, and the state archives would have some information.

It would be nice to interview people who lived in Heeia Kea at the time,
the people who engaged in the searches, and people who have claimed to
have sighted Butch over the years.  There must be a huge fund of oral
tradition here if you could find people who would talk.  There's the real
problem; most people don't talk.  They don't want the noteriety; they
don't want to be contradicted; they no like make "A."

The psychologists tell us we see what we want to see.  A bear in the
Koolaus?  Nonsense!  It's just a legend, right?

Yeah, right.