We are getting reports of bear attacks in a number of locations. Last week a couple who were camping along a lake were attacked by a brown bear during the night. We refer to sleeping in a tent in the summer as providing a "sack lunch for bears." The couple used bear spray and that gave them enough time to get into their kayaks and get away from the bear(s). They managed to get to help and were medevac'd to Anchorage. Their names have not been released and it is not public knowledge if they survived their injuries or not. Yesterday a woman was hiking alone in nearby mountains when she called her husband for help and said she was deploying bear spray. Her phone cut out and she did not respond to repeated attempts to contact her. Husband went on a search and alerted authorities to the situation. She has not been found as of last night and is assumed to be in the stomach of one or more bears. The latter event occurred at 1:00 AM. Even though it is still quite light now at that hour, no one in their right mind should be hiking alone under those conditions unless you have no choice. Women are usually smarter than that. I find it curious that apparently none of these people were carrying firearms of any kind. The campers were probably visitors to the state, but apparently the woman was a resident, although I don't know for how long. When my sons went backpacking, I always insisted they have company and carry a gun.
Pretty much. And he had talked a woman into coming with him when that happened. There's a voice recording of the whole thing. It's nothing you'd want to listen to a second time. They made a pretty long documentary of it.
Brown bears and grizzlies are really the same type of bear, except when they live near the coast they are referred to as Brown Bears and tend to be larger since the food there is usually more abundant. Grizzlies live in the interior and are smaller but still much larger than black bears. According to DNA analysis, Polar Bears evolved from Grizzlies/Brown Bears and there is always some cross breeding occurring between them, and some scientists think that if the ice melts up north, the polar bears will simply become Brown Bears again as the white coat will not be as necessary and they will have to learn to sleep though the winter again.
A guy on another forum who lives in Colorado had a bear manage to open the door of his truck and climb in. Unfortunately, the door closed behind the bear. The result:
I'm not so concerned about the black bears we have here in Maine, although we have a lot of them. I have camped out on the ground, in a tent, and in a hammock, and found bear tracks near my hammock one morning when I got up, although I slept through his visit. At the same time, I am mindful that black bears, although not nearly as likely to be dangerous as brown or polar bears, are still not cuddly creatures, and could easily kill me. Sometimes I think to bring a weapon when I'm in the woods, but often I don't. Most black bear attacks occur in or near state or national parks, where generations of bears have not been subject to hunting. Spring and early summer are particularly volatile times for bears.
That's quite a life-altering experience, finding bear tracks next to one's bed. It's probably best that you didn't wake up. Most of what I read of black bear attacks is that they seem to happen when the bear gets startled, like someone riding a bike on a trail then suddenly coming around a corner and there the bear is. Black bears in my area likely present a lesser risk since they don't really go into a state of torpor--our winters are short and are not that cold--so they haven't fasted for much time. The Great Dismal Swamp is in the coastal plain region of Virginia and has very mild winters. There's a large bear population there, and they've actually wandered into Virginia Beach. Hardly their native habitat, huh?
We have black bears that roam across the property about this time of year as they wake up hungry. I think I posted about the wife's encounter while she was tending plants in the drive while I was in the greenhouse with the dog several hundred yards away. She turned around and there it was trying to get into our dumpster. She got into the house and called me on my phone. I told her where the shotgun and ammo was and she knew where her handgun was, but even after all these years she in uncomfortable around guns. I remembered our youngest son had left some firecrackers in his room when he left home, so I told her to get those and throw a few out. She used those to get the bear moving...no harm done. I think I have posted about my only real encounter with a brown/grizzly bear while hunting moose in the real wilderness. We had flown in for a couple weeks on hunting--myself and two old high school buddies--in 2000. We were calling moose and we heard a commotion in the bushes. We expected a moose and the large brownie that came out of the brush expected to see a moose as well. I had a .338 in my hands and asked my friend if he wanted a bear skin. He said no, so we waited and a few seconds later, he turned and sauntered back into the bushes. I had a brown bar tag as I consider it insurance against bear encounters and one is less likely to hesitate when aggressively approached if you know it is legal to shoot the attacker. He got to about 20 yards from me before turning.
I think I've posted this before, but it's an article written 3 years ago citing 93 cases when a handgun was used in an attempt to halt a black bear attack. Of the 93 cases there were 3 failures and 90 successes, yielding a success rate of 97%, including a guy who killed a sow with a .22 when she came after him in defense of her cubs. Some of the cases have great detail, others are just a two line summary. Some contain commentary, and most link back to their source. AmmoLand
I bought a little house right on the Atchafalaya River I was within eyesight of the 4 mile bridge that was over the basin. It was 30 years ago and about 10 years previous to that the state released black bear into the basin thinking they would be hunted. Not one was ever recovered or found by a hunter. I suppose the alligators had Bear for dinner often. Some of those 12 13 foot gators could bring down a black bear very easy. That size gators are not uncommon and very plentiful here where I live. Across the street from my little house was 400 acres of corn just about every year so there was plenty of food for those bears to have survived and of course there were many fields not just the one across the road from me.
I've seen drawings of how much over-planting of corn is required in some areas due to bear pilfering and destruction. It's a significant amount. On the other hand, being grain fed might make the meat more palpable. It works for venison.