Who needs Bear Spray?

[David Ure]

Just a simple question seems to work…..

http://www.wimp.com/curiousbear/

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Nice video…he captured that encounter well.

[Mark Ries]

Always best to talk about things first

[James holden]

once you tell the cute cuddly bear that you didnt bring spray because it would have pushed your base weight to 5.00001 oz … it ran away because it didnt want you to suffer the shame on BPL of not being SUL ;)

[David Ure]

Nonsense? I agree. A kiss on the cheek was probably warranted.

I like how the bear slowly climbed down the ladder. Cute fella.

[Mike W]

Good video!

Was the camera mounted on the end of his rifle barrel?

[Stephen Barber]

My guess would be the man in the perch was an archer waiting for deer. They tend to set up stands like that. If he'd had a bear tag, he had any number of potential shots. I thought the bear did a great job of climbing the ladder, and wasn't all that scared of the hunter – he only went a dozen yards away before resuming his slow amble…

[Jon Leibowitz]

That was great.

[Jeffs Eleven]

That was easy!

eric, you should be ashamed! ;)

Honestly though, I bet that guy pooped a little.

[Luke Schmidt]

Funny video but I wonder "How do bears like this make it through hunting season?"

[Erin McKittrick]

I went for the "bluff the bear" approach myself. Although it didn't seem so funny at the time, I can't help but laugh at my words here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iinv_5e_QGg

[Bradley Danyluk]

Have to wonder what the bear would've done had he had reached the top.
He seemed more primed for a cuddle than a meal.

[David Thomas]

Erin,

Somehow I missed this thread last year. VERY, VERY nice job on handling that bear encounter. My wife also does a great job (1) of noticing food sources / water noise / poor sight lines and yacking it up to avoid any encounter and (2) talking to them calmly when needed. But you two do even better.

-David
(in Kenai. But we took the ferry up from Seattle 14 years ago – not walking the whole dang way!)

[Ozzy McKinney]

Black bear video- cute.
Erin's griz video- #$&@ing terrifying. I'm staying in WA.

[Ben C]

That was pretty impressive, Erin. I'm not sure I would be that calm with one of our black bears.

[David Thomas]

You southerners might be even more impressed if you saw a brown bear in the fall. A well-fed bear ready for hibernation has its belly dragging on the ground. The bear in the video – its belly was VERY high and the shoulders, back, and sides were all looking VERY lean. Not that it changes the proper strategy – which Erin and Hig demonstrate wonderfully in that video, but that was one hungry bear!

"Staying in WA" is exactly what they didn't do – 4,000 entirely human-powered miles from WA along the BC and AK coastlines to the Aleutian Islands. I do that same route many times a year, but at 31,000 feet. At ground level, I only do a few score of miles at a time.

[Justin Baker]

I just saw a video of the worst way you could handle a bear encounter.

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