Bears are some of the most majestic creatures on this planet. They are also some of the most feared creatures.
Not so much so as some of the other of God’s creatures though.
The shark, for example. Or the snake. Or the spider.
I cite Hollywood as the culprit. There are several scary movies about animals out there. Arachnaphobia. Jaws. Babe: A Pig in the City.
But you don’t see any scary movies about bears out there. Well, ok, there are, but there aren’t any that actually scare you. All movies with bears in them are either comedies or shitty. Or both.
Now, I’m not saying that the bear should be thought of as a blood thirsty monster.
They should be respected as a dangerous animal, however.
Where I live, you don’t encounter a bear unless you go to the local zoo and jump into the cage. And while I’m sorry to say that this has happened before, this practice is still considered by most as “stupid”.
But the call of the wild is inevitable. Someday, each and every person will have an uncontrollable urge to ‘rough it’, and explore the great outdoors.
Sometimes that means travelling to Africa to discover your inner self. Sometimes it means leaving your car at home and walking to the park. And sometimes, it means camping in the woods, with the many creatures of nature.
Including bears.
Now, most everyone knows the rule that you don’t leave food lying around your campgrounds.
But what if you decide to go hiking? What if, on a whim, you wander off the specifically laid out trail, and are stupid enough to get lost, and you accidentally run across one of these?
Unlike most topics on this webpage, I decided to do a little research with this one. Bear attacks are a serious matter. I wouldn’t want to give faulty advise.
Here’s what I found out:
In an interview given in the 'Calgary Herald', Ray Walker tells of his encounter with a grizzly bear. In July, 1998, Walker stumbled across a huge grizzly sow and her two cubs. Walker was mauled and left for dead by the mother grizzly. Mutilated and bleeding to death, Walker managed to crawl to his van, where he drove to a store in Beaver Mines and 'raised the alarm'.
When asked how he could have handled the situation better, Walker had this to say: "I did it all wrong. I had the knowledge, but I froze."
Walker now educates companies with backcountry interests, hiking and school groups, about how to avoid bear attacks.
He's given lectures and is featured in an educational video produced by a Toronto company.
I realize that didn’t actually contain any useful information, other than the knowledge that freezing in terror is considered ‘doing it all wrong’. The reason I posted that particular segment is because I find it slightly odd that people would listen to advise on avoiding bear attacks from a man who was mauled nearly to death, lost over half his eye sight, and ‘did it all wrong’.
How can he honestly say he’s an expert on avoiding bear attacks? He fucked up an let a bear chew on his ass for a while.
That’s all he’s an expert on. Getting eaten. He saw the bear, and let it eat him. He didn’t run, he didn’t try to hit it, he just sat there and let it eat him. But yet people give him money to tell them how to avoid bears.
I fell out of a car when I was a kid because I opened the door and leaned out just as my dad was turning a corner.
Did I give lectures on how not to fall out of a car? No. Why? Because I was too stupid to figure that out for myself. I fell out of the car because I didn’t know how to stay inside.
This Walker guy was eaten by a bear because he’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to avoid bear attacks.
However, some sources I researched suggest that perhaps Walker was on the right path, after all. Many sources say that the best way to survive a bear attack is to play dead. Particularly when the bear is a large grizzly.
Apparently, the bear will then merely eat you a little, and then leave you be.
Supposedly, this is a good thing.
But, I have to ask myself, what if you are being attacked by a particularly stupid bear? What if the bear doesn’t realize that you are playing dead? What if it doesn’t recognize that when its prey plays dead, its supposed to stay hungry and go somewhere else?
What if the bear just keeps eating you?
My sources tell me, the bear will eat you a little, and then go away. So… how do you tell when the bear has passed that point where he’s now eating too much? Do you just keep sitting there and let him continue to eat you? At what point should you let the bear know that he’s had more than his fair share, and that now he’s just being a greedy pig?
I can’t imagine laying there, while the bear is eating my leg, and just pretending like I’m not being eaten. I especially couldn’t imagine still playing dead when the bear moves on to my second leg, after having completed with the first one.
None of my sources mentioned anything other than ‘play dead’. Once the bear has actually attacked, no one gives any hint as to how to get the bear to stop eating your ‘dead’ body. Coincidentally, no one bothered to mention how you were supposed to convincingly play dead when razor sharp teeth keep tearing off chunks of your skin, without screaming in total agony.
The best advice I found was:
If the bear has contacted you or is about to, PLAY DEAD! Protect your face and the back of your head and neck. Remain still until bear stops the attack and leaves the area.
I have to assume that they have no idea what to do when a bear attacks you. Maybe they just know that after a bear has attacked you, you’re pretty much fucked. At that point, no matter what you do, that bear is gonna kill your ass, and there isn’t shit you can do about it. So naturally, the best option is to lay on the ground while the bear goes apeshit on your ass, and prey it thinks its killed you.
Screaming is bad, because then it just wants to make you shut up. Trying to run is useless, because its hard to run when your right leg is being eaten. Fighting back is futile, because you’re just a man, and that bear is… well, that bear is a BEAR. Fighting back just kinda pisses it off.
However, fighting back is actually the advice given when in this particular situation:
If the bear stalks you and attacks, or attacks at night: DO NOT PLAY DEAD - FIGHT BACK! Try to climb a tree, if the bear follows you, use bear spray, or intimidate it with a branch or rocks. Fight back to let the bear know you are not easy prey. Consider using pepper spray to repel an attack.
Yes. Good advice. Smack the 1,000 lb grizzly bear with a stick. That’ll stop it.
That’s like pelting an oncoming car with pebbles.
The only thing its gonna accomplish is wasting time that could have been spent loading your gun. That’s the only way that bear isn’t gonna destroy your ass.
Rocks aren’t going to help either, unless you can hurl boulders, and there happen to be several lying around right where you are standing.
But the dumbest advice was the ‘climb a tree’ part.
Sound advice.
The pepper spray advice is, while better than throwing rocks and twigs, still nothing compaired to a good shotgun.
For one, the spray acts the same as a can of mace. You have to spray it in the bear’s eyes or nose. If the bear gets that close, you ‘did something wrong.’ Just ask Walker. Once the bear is close enough for you to be spraying it, you’ll probably be too busy shitting your pants and screaming in terror to dig into your knapsack for your ‘bear
deterrent’.
Granted, the same can be said for a shotgun. But should you see the bear from a distance, you could solve the problem then and there, and not have to wait for the bear to have charged up to you. Even if you did you use the spray, at that point, you’re probably gonna be missing a body part before he even realizes you sprayed him.
Besides, at close range, any shotgun would be much more effective that a spritz of pepper spray.
And, according to the United States Geological Survey, improper use of the pepper spray can actually attract bears. So you might have solved the problem of the first bear, but now six more are hunting your ass. Whereas a gun would scare off any other animal within earshot.
See?
Guns = win/win scenario.
Remember that, kids.
So now we know that after getting attacked, you are screwed. Fine. But what can you do to AVOID getting attacked?.
Do everything you can to avoid surprising a bear including singing, talking loudly, and remaining alert. Maximize your presence if spotted by a bear. You should try to get their attention if they are a good distance away otherwise by getting too close it may feel threatened. By getting its attention while far away they may feel less threatened and just leave the area.
Yeah, right. OR, more likely, they’ll charge at you in a blind rage. That’s just about the last thing I’m gonna want to do if I see a bear from a distance. Let it know I’m there.
“Hey! Bear! Over here! Whatever you do, don’t come and eat me!”
In popular areas, such as national parks, some bears have learned that people hike on trails and only during the day.
This information only makes me afraid to go anywhere near the trails. Ever. If I go during the day, they know I’m there. Anytime they get hungry, they can just go to the trails and eat a hiker. Its just like going to the stream for salmon. They know there’s food in the stream.
Well, now they also know that the food is on the trails during the daytime.
However, should the bear feel threatened by you, it may attack, usually to protect cubs or a food source, such as a dead animal. If an attack occurs, it is best to convince the bear that the threat has been removed thus stopping the attack. This can be done by playing dead, climbing a tree, or leaving the area.
I must have missed something there…
Let’s look at that again…
However, **should the bear feel threatened by you, it may attack, usually to protect** cubs or **a food source, such as a dead animal**. If an attack occurs, it is best to **convince the bear that the threat has been removed** thus stopping the attack. This can be done **by playing dead**, climbing a tree, or leaving the area.
How does playing dead convince them not to eat you, when one of the main things they’ll attack you for is to protect a dead animal? You’ve just made yourself look like one of the main things they’ll attack you for!
Doesn’t anyone just kinda step back a minute and listen to what they’ve just said?
That doesn’t make any sense! Logically, if the bear would attack someone because it wants to keep its dead animal, and a much larger dead
animal suddenly appears, it stands to reason that the bear would want to have that new animal.
Odds are good its not gonna think you’ve been laying there rotting for days or anything. I mean, you walked up and dropped dead right in
front of it.
A normal black bear does not view people as food, but a starving or injured bear might. Playing dead or climbing a tree will not stop these kind of attacks so you must fight back. Fight hard, as your life will depend on it.
No shit, dumb ass.
Trying to describe what to do in the event of a bear attack is easy, but during a real attack anything may occur. Each bear and bear attack are different so what may work one time may not work at another time. The best piece of advice is to remain calm and good luck.
Translation: “Kiss your tasty ass good-bye.”
The following section are tips on what to do if a bear approaches you:
- If the bear approaches, shout or make noise.
- Gather together in a group, make yourself look bigger by holding a jacket over your head.
- Find safe shelter.
- Get into a vehicle and drive away.
Get into a vehicle and drive away? Who the hell did they write these stupid bear safety tips for?
If there was a car, NO SHIT you’d get in it and drive away.
Only a total dumbass would run from the car and hide behind a tree or something.
There is no question in my mind, after having read that last little tidbit of information on how to avoid bears, that the person who wrote
this has never had any kind of an encounter with any bear of any kind.
Save maybe a large stuffed one in a museum. And I’m betting they wet themselves and cried for mommy on the floor until security had them
hauled away.
This is part of an interesting news article I found…
Churchill, Manitoba, the "Polar Bear Capital of the World," was established in 1771. Since that time, only two townspeople have ever been killed by polar bears, despite numerous encounters. The first death occur red in 1968. Native teenagers followed polar bear tracks through a fresh snowfall, found the animal, and proceeded to molest him. The bear attacked and killed one of them. The bear was shot.
I actually don’t even know where to begin with this article.
I mean, on one hand, the article is trying to convey how good the “Polar Bear Capital of the World” is by telling everyone that its
natives are so stupid that they follow bears around to molest them.
On another hand… WHO THE HELL MOLESTS A BEAR????
How stupid do you have to be??????
Did they just assume that “Hey, its been nearly two hundred years since a polar bear has killed anyone out here… These bears must be very nice! So nice, that I bet I could do anything with it! I could practice for the prom!!”
And how did anyone find out that they tracked the bear to molest it? Did the teenager who survived actually tell people that? “Oh, god, it was awful!! Billy was just playing with it, and the bear was still asleep, so Billy unbuckled his pants… Oh god, I can still hear his screams!”
I would have loved to have seen the looks the cops gave each other as they listened to this boy tell them that he and his buddy secretly fantasized about being with huge furry love toys.