Grizzly Bear Attacks on the Rise

"No no! The handgun is to shoot your partner in the leg!"

For that you don't need a .44. Carry a .22 and save a couple pounds. This is BP LIGHT, fer cryin' out loud!

Wait a minute, a .22? This is BackpackingLIGHT, a .22 is a least 4 or 5 oz. A much better option is to take a partner who is slower then you and no gun. Without that extra 4 oz in your pocket you should be able to outrun that slow partner…

Edited to fix dumb spelling mistake

"A much better option is to take a partner who is slower then you and no gun. Without that extra 4 oz in your pocket you should be able to outrun that slow partner…"

While this sounds good in theory, the slower runner will know he's slower and may very well beat you to the punch. Literally. Better to take an overconfident, faster runner and kneecap him out of the blue. ;o)

I went to Yellowstone this year. And after watching the stupid humans….I actually am very, very surprised that we don't see more bear/human issues. I was absolutely appalled by the stupid behavior of some of the visitors.

Everywhere you go, there are warnings about bears. Yet, I was driving down a road and noticed cars starting to pull over and also that people were out of the cars while others were joining. No rangers were there yet. I slowed down, of course, to see what animal was in the area. I noticed immediately that a bear was feeding in the trees about 50 feet off the side of the road. This section had pretty dense vegetation. An additional note….this was springtime and a sow with cubs had been spotted in this area the day before.

While I sat there people started leaving the side of the road to go into the trees toward the bear with their cameras. I finally leaned out the window and told them they needed to get back and get into their cars. Part of the group turned and looked. When they saw I was just another visitor they turned back and / or kept walking. One guy took a double take….it was like it just hit him how stupid he was being. He also started telling people to get back and went back to his car. THEN…. Since the bears butt was directed at them… A group started to go deeper into the trees at an angle trying to get to the other side of the bear…..basically pinning the bear in. The worst was this stupid lady dragging an obviously scared kid by the are thru the brush while yelling …'COME ON. ..you are gonna make us miss seeing the bear up close'

I actually took a picture where you see human butts in the foreground and a bear butt in the mid ground of the photo. The photo is not very good. I did not have a wide angle lens readily available in my front seat. The fuzzy brown thing to the right of the tree is the bear.

My phone had no signal, so I drove until I got one and called the rangers.

My issue is that if one of those idiots had been hurt that the NPS would have to probably kill the bear.

Again, I cannot believe that more bad things don't happen with bears in Yellowstons. I can't express how dumbfounded I was at the total lack of any sense of those people. It had to be over 25 of them who actually went into the woods to get a close up view of the bear. It was like it was a freaking zoo.

I did a Yellowstone trip in about 1966

We counted more than 100 bears – bears on the side of the road causing traffic jams, bears going through campgrounds with people shooing them away by banging against metal garbage can lids (remember when they had metal garbage cans?)

I think since then, the officials have tried to discourage bears from being in public areas

I did a Yellowstone trip in maybe 1976 and I don't think we saw any bears

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be about wild animals. Too much exposure to Hollywood animals, not enough exposure to the real thing?