Holy crap. Looks like that bear is enjoying the scent of someone's boots. So educate me: -Is this the time of year they fatten up for hibernation, or does that start later? Or does it vary across the vast region? -How desperate do they have to be in order to eat a human, or are we just another opportunistic prey item that's as likely to be taken as any other critter?
This is the time they are trying to fatten. This guy looks to be pretty chubby. It is hard to get the scale from the pic, but my friend used to work for Fish and Game, and he said it was a large bear for this area. They generally don't eat humans unless starving or confronted...or they think you are something else...like a moose. The only time I was ever charged was when we were calling moose while hunting. We saw movement in the brush, and out came a very large grizzly about 20 yards away. We thought the motion was a moose coming to the call and he believed he was going to get a moose dinner. When he realized we were not what he thought, he turned and left. We didn't shoot him. The grizzly/brown bears will drive other animals off their kills and help themselves, but I have only known a few humans who were injured or killed, and they were usually doing something to defend their camp or their food. All the bears eat berries, but the blacks prefer berries (but will certainly eat meat) and the grizzlies prefer meat but will consume berries as well.
Yeah, a lot of people think of black bears as being aggressive predators but, while they can be if they think they have to, something like 80% of their diet consists of stuff like berries, bugs, and other edible plants, while a large part of their meat diet was already dead when they came upon it.
I couldn't find your original post about the video. I guess it was a friend's routine spot for a game cam? I've mentioned that I've had black bear at the house. There are tough to get good night pics of. I suspect it's the dark color, and the fur does not lay flat as it does on other animals, making focus impossible. I've not been concerned about their presence, but did get up one morning to see a smudge on my sliding glass patio door. I looked real close and made out a nose smear and a paw print, right at eye level. My only concern at that point was that the thing my accidentally lean on the glass a little too hard and end up in the house. The funny thing is I had been in the home for 5-6 years before they came anywhere near the place. I guess the black bear around my area don't get aggressive or desperate around this time of year because they don't truly hibernate, so they don't fatten up and they can come out & snack. Regarding people defending their camps from a grizzly: that's not a hill worth dying on.
I was reading that if you happen upon black bear cubs, the mama bear is more likely to try to get the kids out of harm's way than she is to attack. I think we've discussed that most black bear attacks/deaths have occurred when the bear has been startled, usually something like people biking through the trails, turning a corner and running into the thing. I saw one walking through my backyard, and when I went on the deck to temp fate, it just looked back over its shoulder at me unimpressed, and ambled off. I've not found evidence of it's den, but my place had been logged a while ago so there's plenty of felled lumber and brush piles for them to choose from.
A famous polar bear in the Anchorage zoo ate a cat that wandered into its cage, and the bear ended up dying from a parasite the cats was carrying. Revenge, I guess.
I have to tell you that I went looking for that story, and while I did not find it, I did come across a lot of "Beloved polar bear dies in Alaska zoo" stories. There are stories of a bunch of different bears. Apparently there are lots of polar bears in your zoos, and people seem to get real attached...and all the bears got Aleutian names. Out my way the zoos have panda bears. The talking heads love it when a new one arrives: "It's panda-monium at the zoo!" Then they giggle at their own cleverness.
When the story you found was written, they may not have had the necropsy results on the bear because it probably had to go to Oregon. What was published here was the story I related. Binky was beloved by Alaskans. Binky was also the one who "tasted" an Australian tourist who ignored the signs and rails and climbed in to get a better picture of the polar bear. She lost here shoe and got nipped on the butt for her troubles before folks could get her away. They are still wild animals.... Teenagers also climbed intro the cage at night for a swim in the polar bear pool. They were also mauled. Some attributed that mauling in the bear's death, but what I read at the time was that ingesting a cat is what did it. Sarcocystosis was determined to be the causative factor.
I recall that story of the stupid tourist. Millions cheered for the bear. Modern civilization does way too much Darwin-thwarting.
How sad, hope the jerks went to jail. Animals are territorial like all species are. An idiot commits a crime, and the animal dies. I know we have to protect ourselves from them but jumping in the cage isn't doing that. I didn't like seeing the Silver Back gets shot.
Just encountered on another forum: There were only a couple of comments on this video. Someone asked where it was. The guy who posted it said "Alaska." I guess that narrows it down.
Magnificent animal! Yeah, narrows it down to an area equal to 1/5 of the Lower 48 states. Even some who live here don't realize how big it is.