Bear outside my tent

[DWR D]

Salami is cardiac food…. better to let the bear have it… :)))

Probably saved years of your life!

[Dave @ Oware]

CA bears are getting more bold. More people in the woods. I used to think them as big chipmunks and chase them with rocks. Just got back from a trip to Bob Marshall in Montana. Everyone had bear spray or pistols, including thru hikers. Also lots of dogs. Not sure if dogs would be a good thing or bad thing when it comes to grizzly bear. Some were very big, bear biting, type of dogs. When I lived at Tahoe even the smallest border collie or coonhound would chase bears out of the yard or tree a mom with cubs.

Might be time for spray or trained dogs around Tahoe etc.

—

Last weekend-“The agency said the woman reported standing by a picnic table and was unaware of a bear about 15 feet away when it walked up to her and hit her in the leg, tearing her jeans and causing minor injuries.”

https://www.sierrasun.com/news/woman-struck-by-bear-on-visit-to-tahoe-concerns-officials/

also

“Human and wildlife encounters and attacks have been on the rise in California. Foy said that when he started with CDFW 24 years ago there was about one attack by a bear, mountain lion, or coyote every 1.5 years. In 2020 there were seven bear attacks, three mountain lion attacks, and more than one dozen coyote bites in the state according to Foy.”

http://southtahoenow.com/story/06/29/2021/self-defense-ruled-shooting-bear-broke-south-lake-tahoe-home

https://www.kcra.com/article/sierra-bear-attack-sparks-warning/6391526

https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/568171-bear-surprises-man-in-dumpster-man-files-lawsuit

https://www.sierrasun.com/news/crime/black-bear-mauls-northern-california-man-officials-to-kill-animal-once-found/

 

[Ben H.]

Waking up to noises and immediately reaching for a gun sounds like a good way to shoot your buddy on a midnight run to the latrine.

Black bear fatalities are extremely rare and usually captive bears. Wild black bear fatalities are even rarer and usually predation (not getting between a bear and its food/cub).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America

Chase off and act aggressively towards a black bear. Don’t shoot wildly into the night.

[Bonzo]

Waking up to noises and immediately reaching for a gun sounds like a good way to shoot your buddy on a midnight run to the latrine.

Sure does…which is why it’s worth mentioning that reaching for a weapon and using a weapon are two different things, each of which needs to be prefaced and separated by both thought and practice.  If you can’t carry a weapon safely, you have no business carrying it at all.

Don’t shoot wildly into the night.

Or at any other time.  Same goes for any other weapon…bear spray included.

[Rex Sanders]

Or California bear/puma/coyote attacks are rising because lots more (clueless) people are moving into the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas, permanently or temporarily, for many reasons, including cost and zoning.

And also starting most wildfires, but that’s another thread.

— Rex

[Dave @ Oware]

“‘I really, truly should be dead’: Bay Area woman mauled by bear in Tahoe while fighting cancer

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bear-attack-mauling-lake-tahoe-cancer-16590283.php

More bear activity near Tahoe, likely caused by fires. Friend of my wife has said a bear has entered her house 8 times in Truckee this year. Kept changing door knobs and locks till they found one that seems to work so far. The bears don’t mind humans, cats or dogs already in the house. Bear proof garbage cans have been required for years there.

[jscott]

“Don’t shoot wildly into the night.
Or at any other time.  Same goes for any other weapon…bear spray included.”

Good advice. Simple, no?

No, apparently. In real life, people react irrationally when frightened. They shoot wildly into the night every day and night of the year. The ideal never matches the reality.

And yes, there will always be another bear mauling story in the Tahoe area, or elsewhere in the Sierra. Just as someone will be struck by lightning, or drown, or fall from a cliff.

Lightning strikes and accidents driving to the trailhead are still more common than being bit by a bear in the mountains of the west of the U.S..

I’m guessing more people are inadvertently shot in the wilderness than are attacked by animals.
So don’t camp by someone who’s carrying! Statistically, that’s far more dangerous than any bear. Or salami, for that matter.

I feel at rest and at home in the wilderness where I hike. I don’t carry a gun in my house.

[obx hiker]

You’ll notice that people get shot by gun hunters out in the wild but not by bow hunters. Evidently this is due in part to the way we ‘see’

Your eyes don’t just ‘see’ something they detect and transmit something like the colors and patterns of light to your brain which then interprets the pattern and ‘identifies’ or ‘sees’ what you are looking at. Sometimes there are brief misinterpretations but there is also a sort of feedback loop and this gets corrected so rapidly we hardly ever notice it. But sometimes with guns we shoot before we’ve corrected.

One distinct occasion I had about 40 years ago out on the family farm when I saw a ‘tall skinny black lab running across a field about 1/4 mile away but rapidly and sort of confusedly realized the dog was too ‘tall’ and almost simultaneously it ‘turned’ into a skinny black bear. I guess the bear in this location was so very far out of the ordinary that at first I didn’t ‘see’ it correctly. Plus while obviously too tall to be a black lab it was pretty skinny for a bear and possibly a ‘juvie’.

Pretty weird experience having something change sorta right before your ‘eyes’  but I watched it run about 10 yards before it ‘became’ a bear.

I always wear something blaze orange in hunting season, usually a ball cap but if the vegetation is thick or the hunting pressure high I’ll wear a vest as well.

[jscott]

Yes, once while on a day hike at Mt. Diablo near Walnut Creek, when there had been a late spring snow at the higher elevations, I saw a large dog loping along a dirt road at the bottom of the hike. I thought, “huh, I thought dogs were supposed to be on leashes in this park…oh wait..” Already the mountain lion was out of sight before I knew what it was. Prints in the muddy road showed deer tracks and the tracks of a big cat.

I “saw” what I expected to see, and then saw what was actually there.

[Roger Caffin]

You’ll notice that people get shot by gun hunters out in the wild but not by bow hunters.
There may be reasons:
Arrows are more expensive than bullets
Arrows require you to be closer and to aim more carefully

Cheers

[Dave @ Oware]

“Arrows require you to be closer and to aim more carefully”

Closer than for rifles, but shotgun and pistol have similar ranges to bows. And all require careful aiming. Arrows are reusable and with the lighted nocks available now, easier to find. With the ammo shortage going on, a cartridge may very well cost as much as an arrow.

I have lost friends to climbing, skiing and drunk drivers. Not to hunters or target shooters tho there are many millions of hunters, millions in many states. Sure, wear orange during big game hunting season, but also  get your Covid shot.

[Daryl and Daryl]

Explain this one.

By myself in North Cascades of Washington.  Near dark. On trail.

Big black bear suddenly appears, charging at full speed, coming straight for me like grizzly charges that I have read about.  I hear him before I see him because his breathing is very loud and fast like he’s been running at top speed for awhile.   He’s huffing and puffing like a steam engine.

Not enough time for me to do anything but yell.  Could not have drawn a gun or discharged a bear spray from my waist.  But yell I did.  One long, loud, deep, life/death, growl as I aggresively leaned toward the on-coming bear who was about to hit me like a freight train.  It worked.  He swerved just before running into me and continued full speed down the trail.

So my guess is he was running from something………not charging me.  I just happened to be in his way.  But what would put the bear into that frame of mind?

[Dave @ Oware]

That reminds me of friends who took a trip up north. They encountered a grizzly on the trail and used a large fire cracker to scare it off. Except in the adrenaline filled moment tossed it over the bear. They were then obliged to step off the trail as the bear went tearing by.

Many of the black bears I have seen have been at full gallop running from something.

At a campground in NE Washington a runner and a bear collided at a blind spot and knocked each other over. First reported as a bear attack, but later found they just were both blindly racing about.

[HkNewman]

If you don’t camp near people who are doing something stupid

That’s increasingly tough to do.  My big worry is camping on a site with food residues, though I’ll tend to hike the outer western rim of the US anymore (WA, OR, CA, AZ, NM) where the black bears are a bit more mellow .. must be the beach vibe.

Scorpions

They are out there and I’ve been stung 4 times at least (3 in AZ and 1 north of Austin TX at Ft Hood).  Each time it came out of nowhere from a rolled up tent door flap (nylon, Army cotton canvas).  They love burrowing in fabric rolls “snug as a bug” – actually arachnids – and are quick to show their disapproval.  Luckily I wasn’t allergic though each sting hurt for about 10 minutes  – the Army doc had me sit down for 15 minutes then explained it was the allergic reaction that can be deadly.

[Todd T]

Big black bear suddenly appears, charging at full speed…He’s huffing and puffing like a steam engine…But what would put the bear into that frame of mind?

Every black bear I’ve ever seen took off running as soon as s/he became aware of me.  One, that was fairly close to me and out in the open and (I guess) looking to find cover as soon as possible, was huffing and puffing like a steam engine within about 2 seconds of seeing me.  When they think you might be a threat, they don’t waste time moving away.  In your case I’m guessing the bear was fleeing something ahead on the trail, possibly/probably another hiker?

[David Thomas]

Yes, many more people are building and living in the urban-wildland interface, but also, there is just a larger population of mountain lions and black bear in the western US than 50 years ago.  Some fraction of which will be hungry, curious, injured and prone to have human interactions.

Dogs: In Alaska, some “DLP” (defense of life or property) shootings of bears, including grizzlies, are due to a dog sniffing out a bear and then running back to their human with the bear in pursuit.  A few dogs breeds (e.g. Karelian bear dogs) have the instincts to work cooperatively to engage a bear, but that’s sort of predicated on a human eventually dispatching the bear.

I feel safer with our Lab/Aussie along because I trained her to return to me when she senses any critter or party of humans ahead.  The last bear I saw on the trail was because she returned to me with her particular “I returned, just you wanted me to” demeanor, I looked up, and there it was.  Much more often, closer to home, I’m alerted to a moose ahead through the dog.  It also seems like good trail etiquette for her to return to me before another hiking party has even seen her (a running black dog is often clocked as a black bear) and when we pass, she’s doing a sit-stay with me just off the trail.

[David Thomas]

On bears being chased:  We were at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park (to watch bears) 21 years ago, and an adolescent grizzly was walking into the campground.  Everyone I wasn’t related to went inside the electric fence around the food cache, while all my in-laws were standing their ground, saying “Go away bear.  You don’t belong here, bear.”

Because I had a 5-month-old in a chest carrier, I was further behind the in-laws and had a more expansive view.  I could see the adolescent was avoiding a big momma sow (who are aggressive around other bears which could predate their cubs) and told my in-laws, “This isn’t about us, it’s not coming for our food, it’s just passing through.”  which it did.

Sometimes the thing you find scary is itself scared.

[Kevin Babione]

@OBX Hiker – I had a similar “transformative” experience while hiking on the Old Loggers Path in PA a number of years ago.  The trail is a 30-mile loop that, as the name suggests, uses a lot of old railroad beds as the trail.  I was in the lead of our group on one of the long straight stretches and I noticed a hiker coming towards us with an unusual gait.  When I realized it wasn’t a hiker I pulled out my camera about the same time momma bear stood up to get a better look at me…

It was pretty cool – she had 3 cubs with her, including the blond one that you can see if you zoom in on the picture.  She immediately took them off the trail uphill (to the right in the photo) while we stood still for a couple of minutes to let them get clear.

[Dave @ Oware]

“Don’t shoot wildly into the night.
Or at any other time.  Same goes for any other weapon…bear spray included.”

My friend’s trail name is Bear Spray Bidet

[Roger Caffin]

We don’t have black bear or brown bears in Oz, for which we are grateful. We do have Drop Bears, but that is another story.
Feral pigs and dogs and horses, yes, but they all run away.
Did come across two male large kangaroos once: they were fighting. Yes, they could kill a human very easily by kicking with their feet, but normally they would run away quickly. No danger.
The biggest danger in Oz in the bush would have to be idiots (and politicians).

Cheers

[obx hiker]

“My friend’s trail name is Bear Spray Bidet”

You drop that one and you’re not going to tell us the story?

[Dave @ Oware]

He isn’t talking.

[Rex Sanders]

Thylarctos plummetus, common name drop bear.

“… unusually large and vicious marsupials that inhabit treetops and attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above.”

Journal papers:

https://doi.org/10.1080%2F00049182.2012.731307

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.16.1.2017.3579

http://ecite.utas.edu.au/85244

“Connections between alien abductions and drop bear attacks in Australia”
FW Mulder, DK Scully – Journal of Paranormal Phenomena, 2000

Be careful out there! I’ll take California brown bears any day.

— Rex

[Rex Sanders]

Speaking of California brown bears …

Decades ago, I was walking along Highway 120 in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows at late dusk. Noticed someone walking toward me about 25 yards ahead, didn’t think much of it.

On next glance, this tall, dark-clothed person dropped to all fours and continued in my direction. Took a few seconds to make sense of this unusual behavior.

I started walking backwards rapidly. Soon enough, the bear turned off the road, and I returned to camp.

— Rex

[Roger Caffin]

attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above.
Yes, but!
They are cunning and select the tail-end charlie in a group. The loss of this person is not noticed until later.

Cheers

[Author]

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