Woman orders bear to stop breaking her kayak, bear doesn’t listen (VIDEO)

I like that she was trying to reason with it. Women ask why. Men get killed trying to stop the bear Since im a man i think the two options are pretty equal… Women prolly tend to think that men act irrationally by trying to stop a bear. Men think its irrational to reason with a bear Only real question is… Do yellow kayaks taste like bananas?

That was actually really sad to watch. She was in a tough spot, what else could she do? Maybe throw things at it, but that's a little more risky. I'd be pretty upset myself if I was on a solo kayak trip and a bear threatens to strand me by breaking my boat.

I had a Kodiak bear eat the foam rubber seat in my kayak on one trip. Luckily he didn't swallow any pieces so I was able to slowly put the slobber soaked 3D jigsaw puzzle back together with half a roll of duct tape.

Probably wouldn't have happened if she hadn't pepper sprayed the bear in the face.

She thanks the bear for leaving her kayak alone, then pepper sprays it in the face – albeit from a distance outside its effective range. Then she calls the bear back to her when she realizes it's making a bee-line for the kayak. I think I know which of the two was acting more rationally. It was a train wreck of a video, and she's damn lucky the bear didn't attack. I fear for that woman if she's out there alone over a long Alaskan winter.

Seems she was trying to talk it to death. Which might also explain why she's solo.

Oh yeah, that woman has a lifetime of solo hiking ahead of her…

Sure her pleading sounds whiny and annoying and her spraying the bear at that distance was wrong, but this was clearly a very difficult moment for this woman. The footage with the sound, just like it happened, captured something unflattering: a scared person trying all they know to stop what looks like a really wrong turn to their trip. She could have done better but she could also have done worse. She was out there alone and while many would say she did not belong there given how she reacted to the bear, she still has my respect for being outdoors doing way more than I am at the moment.

People under stress sometimes do irrational things. (I have been there) If she was kayaking alone it shows that she has more cojones than many guys that I have come across in my life.( Including myself) Kudos to her or any woman that ventures into the outdoors, either alone or otherwise.

Good point, Kat. But some people are really not ready for the kinds of things they're doing. One would think that learning how to handle bear interactions would be very high on the priority list for a trip of this kind, certainly higher than having the wherewithal to turn on the video cam. Also, if you read the bottom portion of her comments, she was able to get back (swim!) to the "SV" (support vessel? — is that solo? hmmm) and she and the kayak were taken back to Wrangell where she was "trying to repair" the bear damage, which seems to imply that she didn't have repair materials and/or the knowledge to use them. The harder you look, the ditzier it gets. Hopefully she is more proficient with her Eskimo Roll. None of this is to gender-stereotype. With my own eyes I've seen men do some monumentally stupid stuff outdoors as well (that well could have ended fatally), and some with non-stop annoying yakking.

I hear you Bob. I also think that preparing for a bear encounter does not necessarily match with what one does when it happens. Whether this woman should be out there or not is hard to tell from just this one video. The high pitched voice makes it sound much worse; had she said the same stuff with a deeper voice it would be met with a little less criticism, I think. She made some mistakes but she did not run, or scream, or shoot a gun, or get too close to the bear. She knew about keeping food away. She expected bear to be hibernating. She had pepper spray. Her biggest fault is to sound whiny and desperate. Spraying at the range she did was wrong but understandable too.

Maybe I came off as hating on her, (which was not intended) but I was more getting at the way people act irrationally under stress. I find humor at the (stereotypical) reactions. I also find humor in a man defending women with statements like this: "Kudos to her or any woman that ventures into the outdoors, either alone or otherwise."

What she's doing is what I have done escorting a bear out of my campsite – you make noise. If you don't want to make nonsense noises, you talk, or yell, whatever comes to mind. Shouting GO AWAY BEAR works as well, tho.

S/V is most likely Sailing Vessel as you can see one anchored in the picture. I guess I am different in that I don't think that spraying at that distance was wrong. The bear was approaching her and she wanted to make it stop. It is a mistake, in my opinion, to wait until you have no choice. When it went for the kayak I would have gotten closer and either used more bear spray or some rocks, but that's just me.

She's so over the top distraught and with that piercing, valley-girl tone of voice, I thought this was a dubbed version of someone else's video. But it seems to check out. At least I don't see anyone else claiming it as their video. And reading her description of the German sailing vessel not having its radio on, suggests that she had a marine VHF with her – a level of preparedness I like to see in Alaska boaters (if the boat is under 30 feet, my PFD is always on and the VHF always in it). Yelling at habituated black bears doesn't do much, IME. Cause I was that woman in my first few bear encounters in CA as a teenager. It took a number of encounters and growing a pair to learn that confronting black bears works better. Throwing fist-sized rocks at them, hard and fast, does drive them off. So does running at them with a stout stick intent on how you're going to hit them when you catch them – they're gone before you arrive. YMMV. I believe this is in Glacier Bay NP, so it is likely (1) habituated to human food and (2) not hunted. Because another approach with hungry hikers and hungry black bears is that the hikers have the bear for dinner. That's we did with the last black bear I saw on the trail. I bring olive oil, taters, carrots, and onions along plus some flour and spices to make a gravy. Here's BPL's own Erin and husband Hig showing how it SHOULD be done, with a grizzly, in a much more remote part of Alaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iinv_5e_QGg

She deploys OC and the bear stopped advancing towards her. I'd love to hear one of the critics explain how she improperly deployed it. And go. I suspect her gosh darn vocal cords were damaged from a tragic Wisconsin cheese curd overdose.

"She deploys OC and the bear stopped advancing towards her. I'd love to hear one of the critics explain how she improperly deployed it. " Fair enough. I just went along with the previous posts saying she deployed from too far, but yes, it worked, so even that criticism does not hold. We are left with the high pitch and repeated pleads to an animal, which did not work . She did all right in my book.

"She deploys OC and the bear stopped advancing towards her. I'd love to hear one of the critics explain how she improperly deployed it." +1 Had the same thought Ian. It's easy to criticize or judge from our armchairs, but i think all in all she handled it pretty well. I felt/feel bad for her, but i'm not going to lie, there were a couple points were i burst out laughing. I don't even fully know why (perhaps giving the bear a hibernation timetable/scolding was part of it). Thankfully it was just the Kayak that got a little gnawed on and beat up and not her. She's lucky it wasn't a Grizzly–might have been a more challenging interaction. Re: David Thomas's video of the Grizzly and couple–holy moly, much more calm than i probably would have been in that situation.

Have to agree this one (bear) was not bothered in the least by the reactions and screaming from the woman. Looked as if this was just another routine scavenging run. On the other hand we crossed paths with 4 black bears so far this season and all were quite nicely agreeable to running away immediately. If I were solo I'm not so sure I would have advance on the bear. Having another or more along, I would probably have had a go at chasing it away, with sufficient spray in hand that is. One thing is for sure, she has a seriously abrasive whine but as for doing anything wrong I have to say probably not. She survived the incident totally unscathed. Hell if a bear were chewing on my expensive gear I might throw a temper tantrum too.