SOS text: ‘Bear attack bad’

“We have essentially no facts since none of us were there, so there is little to no analyzation that can take place in any meaningful way. ”

none of us were on board the Challenger when it exploded, and yet a commission was established to see what went wrong. If being among the dead is a criteria for being able to legitimately analyze a tragedy, nothing would ever be learned.

A bear walked right up to me when I was a teenager backpacking with a friend on a southern Arizona mountain decades ago. It came just as I had finished setting up my tent. My friend was a short distance away setting his tent. It walked on two legs so I had a hard time in the darkness deciding what it was until it was close enough to touch. It didn’t bluff change but slowly ambled. We were not near any campgrounds.

It was fight or flight. We both started pounding it with softball sized rocks and thought that did it, turned to walk to a rocky area and took three steps. Something took three crunching steps behind us and it was so dark we couldn’t see a thing but light glinting off rocks and trees. We couldn’t fight what we couldn’t see and our teenage brains told us to run. All we knew at the time was beats supposedly couldn’t run downhill very well and that mountain was steep. A WWII trainer was totally lost for decades until someone came across it crashed in the very rugged terrain and word around the campfire is the crew’s skeletons were still wearing their ray-bans and dog tags. We were leaping and falling over boulders and logs until we were throughly lost, clinging to the side of the mountain. But the bear was gone in the Stygian darkness.

Never had a bear before or since do anything but run away. They are in the mountains here and we had one walk within 20 yards of us in a desert canyon bottom. When it saw us it raised on its hind legs with arms hanging down and then lit out like lightning had struck.

To this day I still try to analyze that scenario from long ago. What else should we have done…bears are monsters and we are not the top predators out there. I don’t carry weapons or spray but with lions, jaguars and bears roaming the true wilderness it does make it a special primitive place. Thank goodness we have no grizzlies. That recent bear attack that killed the two and their dog hits home with me.

bears are just doing their thing, not monsters

I’ve seen bears a dozen times in Oregon, Washington, and California.  Usually they run quickly away as though they fear me for some reason.

One in the Enchanted Valley in the Olympics a few years ago got on his hind legs and huffed at me to intimidate me, or maybe it just thought it was fun to scare the human.  I backed away and continued on my trip.  I heard they closed it to camping the next day.

On Mt Hood I walked up to this ridge right as this bear was doing the same thing on the other side.  We saw each other when we were 20 feet apart.  It ran away.

I find that the trick is to get your camera out for a picture before it runs away.  I think the Enchanted Valley is the best place to find bears.

…Usually they run quickly away as though they fear me for some reason…

Well, many more bears have been killed by humans than humans have been killed by bears.

then maybe humans are the monsters?

It’s all in your perspective. If a bear is eating you alive are you going to say that’s just a bear being a bear? It’s a monster at that point and if one approaches within three feet that is far different than 20’.

Humans are an invasive species.

I appreciate David chiming in about distrusting “ammoland” as a source of factual information about bear attacks, and it’s clearly biased. Be selective folks and think critically! Bear spray is clearly superior in most cases according to actual published research. But situations change and you never know what can happen in an isolated case. A young woman researcher was killed by a black bear near here a few years back; the bear spray she and her partner had wasn’t enough to deter the bear.  In the case of this couple, having a gun as backup might have saved them. Still, I live and hike and backpack in Alaska and I will likely never carry a gun – at least as long as I’m not in the witness protection program. It’s a choice. If you carry, know how to use your tool well so you don’t get your leg, or someone else. I fear idiots with firearms more than I fear bears. But there are no guarantees.

Very sad about this couple. They look like wonderful people who led a full and adventurous life, something we all value highly, despite the undeniable risks. Condolences to those who knew them. Stay safe out there folks.

Good point Glen, if a bear was eating me alive I’d consider it a monster :)

none of us were on board the Challenger when it exploded, and yet a commission was established to see what went wrong. If being among the dead is a criteria for being able to legitimately analyze a tragedy, nothing would ever be learned.

You’re comparing one of the most data rich, watched, analyzed, and recorded events in world history to two people being killed, completely unobserved, by a bear?

Ok…

Brad…you’re suggesting that no good can come from  discussing the topic of bear attacks, or at least this one in particular. So we should all keep silent.

Ok.

Last summer a young couple and their child and dog died while hiking in extreme temperatures on a trail near Mariposa. A lot of discussion happened. That too was a tragedy. None of us were there. My point is that a lot of good advice came from the discussion. No one wants to see that repeated.

would you want us to pass over the whole thing in silence?

Brad…you’re suggesting that no good can come from discussing the topic of bear attacks, or at least this one in particular. So we should all keep silent.

I’m suggesting it’s utterly fruitless, given the lack of data and evidence, to Monday Morning Quarterback which is all this is. The only intelligent thing that can be said, given the data we have, is the dog may have been a determining factor. That’s it.

Anything beyond that is just vacuous speculation to hear oneself speak.

There is a lot we don’t know. We do know bear attacks basically fall into 2 broad categories

Defensive Attacks – Maybe there is food involved, a surprise or cubs. These are details. The basic problem is a person ends up too close, the bear feels threatened and it attacks instead of running away. Being smart goes a long way to preventing this kind of attack. The basic rule is “stay away from the bear and don’t surprise them.” Bears are less likely to leave an area if there is food so they might let you get closer before reacting one way or the other.

Predatory- The bear is hungry and you look tasty. These may involve a bear that circles or stalks a person or rushes in as a sort of test of how they react. These are more rare but you might need more bear spray to deter them. A friend dealt with a predatory bear in Alaska and apparently several people with bear spray were required. Eventually authorities shot the bear because it was still in the area.

Dogs can be chased and bring a bear to you. So I’d be careful hiking with a dog.

Now in this case it’s possible the dog provoked the attack and the bear took out both people (possibly encountering first one, than the other so the “safety in numbers” didn’t work). On balance I’d guess it was a predatory bear though. That would explain it hanging around to be shot by the rescue party.

So what’s the lesson to learn? Well sometimes you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a guy who randomly got hit by lightning in Big Bend National Park. Bad things happen. It’s possible the dog was a non issue and these folks just met the wrong bear. Or it’s possible the dog brought the bear in.

The only lesson I can think of is be careful with dogs. And maybe consider going a bit heavier on the bear spray than some do. If a bear is really persistent and comes back after a good spraying that might be a predatory bear. I’d want more spray and I’d be leaving the area asap.

Somewhere, maybe here, I read that the tent had been collapsed.

Was this from the bear flopping on top of the tent?  I’ve read elsewhere that this is a common way for bears to stun an animal if it runs into a bush trying to escape the bear.

I know of seven predatory bear attacks in the Smokies, attacks where the bear went after the people, not their food. Two of those attacks were fatal, and both of those cases involved people who were alone. In all the other attacks, there were other people present who were able to help chase the bear away. I think there’s a lesson in that.

Given the many millions of visitors the park has every year, and approximately 1,900 bears in the park, there are quite a few bear encounters. The vast majority of them end with the bear walking away.  I have only encountered two bears on the trail, and heard a third crashing through the brush trying to get away (a solo hiker who just happened to be coming from the other direction confirmed that it was a bear since he saw it running up the trail towards him and when it saw him it jumped off down the slope).  The two I saw eventually ambled off into the woods.  The growth is thick in the smokies so the sight distance is quite limited. One of those bears was at most 50 yards away, and the other was maybe 15 yards away.

I’ve never carried a gun in grizzly or polar bear country. There is no doubt in my mind that bear spray will stop the attack but it is going to take you out too. I was talking to an Iñupiat in Kotzebue, AK as to why I do not not carry a gun. All  he said was, “What are you going to do if your buddy is being mauled?” It is going to be a horrible thing listening to him scream. He commented that I have options and a means of stopping the mauling with a gun should the bear spray fail. I found his question very thought provoking from a risk mitigation redundancy perspective.

A lot of discussion about the dog “bringing” the bear “back” to the tent I would say that’s more likely the dog was in the tent when the bear attacked the tent and it’s occupants. Perhaps the dog died defending the couple or they died trying to defend the dog. Although we would feel more comfortable thinking that we can pinpoint the “reason” or “mistake” so we can prevent this from happening to us we can’t in this particular instance, there just isn’t enough information.

I’ve never carried a gun in grizzly or polar bear country. There is no doubt in my mind that bear spray will stop the attack but it is going to take you out too. I was talking to an Iñupiat in Kotzebue, AK as to why I do not not carry a gun. All he said was, “What are you going to do if your buddy is being mauled?” It is going to be a horrible thing listening to him scream. He commented that I have options and a means of stopping the mauling with a gun should the bear spray fail. I found his question very thought provoking from a risk mitigation redundancy perspective.

Hi Worth, I really enjoyed looking over your website – looks like you’ve done some really great paddle trips! I could see on many of your trips where a firearm may be difficult logistically.

Reading your post, I’m curious what you mean by this; “There is no doubt in my mind that bear spray will stop the attack but it is going to take you out too.” What do you mean by “take you out too?”

All our backpacking here is in Grizzly country. We carry spray for sure, and I’ve had encounters. The only time I’m armed is if I’m in the highcountry on an elk hunt. When packing out dead elk, I’ll carry spray and sometimes a handgun. I think if I were in Polar Bear country I’d be inclined to have a firearm. That’s a different sort of animal than the average grizzly.

Anyway, thanks for your informative site!

A lot of discussion about the dog “bringing” the bear “back” to the tent I would say that’s more likely the dog was in the tent when the bear attacked the tent and it’s occupants. Perhaps the dog died defending the couple or they died trying to defend the dog. Although we would feel more comfortable thinking that we can pinpoint the “reason” or “mistake” so we can prevent this from happening to us we can’t in this particular instance, there just isn’t enough information.

Indeed, there’s zero evidence that the dog brought the bear back; there’s no reason to think it was doing anything other than cuddling with its owners who were reading their Kindles.

And if one is going to speculate that the dog was responsible, perhaps one should also speculate about how many times a bear approaches a campsite, but decides to move on because of the scent of dogs. Just trying to illustrate that this sort of knowledge-free speculation is pretty pointless. And also, one needs to be careful when blindly citing statistics out of context, as we’ve already seen in this thread.

Tom S. Smith and Stephen Herrero published a paper in 2018 titled Human-bear conflict in Alaska: 1880-2015. In it, they analyzed 682 human–bear conflicts that occurred in Alaska from 1880 to 2015. The data they gathered included this about dogs:

In 5.9% (n = 40) of incidents, domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) intervened. Dogs defending persons were successful in terminating the mauling 47.5% (n = 19) of the time. In 5 instances (12.5%) the dog was likely responsible for inciting an attack, either by bringing a bear back to its owners (n = 4) or barking, thus attracting the bear (n = 1).

In 5.9% (n = 40) of incidents, domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) intervened. Dogs defending persons were successful in terminating the mauling 47.5% (n = 19) of the time. In 5 instances (12.5%) the dog was likely responsible for inciting an attack, either by bringing a bear back to its owners (n = 4) or barking, thus attracting the bear (n = 1).

I wondered if someone would drop in the comprehensive Smith/Herrero study. Thanks for doing so.

It’s why I said:

The only intelligent thing that can be said, given the data we have, is the dog MAY have been a determining factor.

The article linked by Moab Randy earlier linked an earlier Herrero study from 2010.https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1183504-ibn-2014-spring-med-res.html

The dog defending isn’t the important statistic, its the bear reacting to the mere presence of a dog.   53% of black bear attacks in their sample involved dogs.  I think its safe to say that nowhere near 53% of hikers brought a dog on trail over this sample period.   Herrero even states “We suggest that bears react to dogs as if they are threatening competitors”

The facts are clear, leave the dog at home, otherwise the risk of a bear attack goes up, significantly.

The phrase, “lies, damn lies, and statistics” comes to mind. They can been hard to interpret unless you have a lot of training in data acquisition and analysis. And it’s easy to misinterpret statistics by using them in ways that they were not meant to be used, because of the lack of proper sampling, controls, etc.

I’m being particular about this because while the risk of a bear attack is low, the implications are pretty important to us all that venture out in bear habitat.

Good thing I have “a lot of training in data acquisition and analysis” :).  I’m formally schooled in stats at a Uni STEM level (EE and Physics) and use them professionally in a design and analysis capacity for the past 30+ years continuously, including technical risk prediction.  But I don’t have access to Herrero’s data set.  And I’m not hearing any counter arguments based on an assessment of his data set.  The info available:

• dogs are present ~ 50% of black bear attacks (NA sample group, 2010)
  • I think its safe to also conclude dogs are present on trail with <<50% of hiker groups.  So a dog’s presence is either coincidence or causal.  Herrero reasonably postulates that its causal: “We suggest that bears react to dogs as if they are threatening competitors”.  The sample group size is large enough that it is highly, highly unlikely that this statistical conclusion is mere random chance.
  • The 2018 study (Alaska sample group) estimates a dog was the clear cause of the attack ~ 20% of the time through first attacking or leading the bear to camp
• A dog may terminate a bear mauling early ~ 50% of the time.
  • But that’s well outweighed by the fact that their presence greatly increases the chance of an attack in the first place

In the absence of other data or a technical analysis refuting Herrero’s analysis, its the best information available to make an objective assessment of the risk and better than a gut call based on unsubstantiated skepticism.

Herrero wasn’t present at any of the attacks that he includes in his study. Neither he nor any of us are “Monday morning quarterbacking”. Herrero is trying to analyze bear attacks to see if anything can be learned in order to avoid them in the future. It’s not about laying blame on the victims.

“The facts are clear, leave the dog at home, otherwise the risk of a bear attack goes up, significantly.”

Wow!! This statement is laughable. So in 5.9% of the incidents dogs were involved. That means in 94.1% of the incidents they weren’t. Unless you also have “a lot of training in bear psychology and dog behavior” I’d say you’re just speculating. There are way too many variables to jump to this conclusion.