Sad, rotten luck.
This is so tragic, but if they hunt down and kill a grizzly I’m going to be pissed.
Hopefully, they will attempt to capture and relocate the bear instead of killing it.
And his surname was Treat.
The universe sure has a sick sense of humor.
This is why I don’t cycle. Also, I’m lazy and cycling is unpleasant. Plus, these chips aren’t going to eat themselves.
It’s just a matter of time. They’ve already put out an APB for a bear on a bicycle.
Camp Granada?
Sad news, but at least the guy went out doing what he loved.
What’s the old joke about not needing to be faster than a lion, just not the faster than the slowest guy in the group?
Sad validation of that old truism. Absolutely no consolation for his friends I’m sure.
Authorities! Please don’t go hunt down that grizzly! Unless it now has a taste for man-flesh, that is.
I’d like to think I’d turn back and throw rocks at the bear to try and save my friend, but I think I would just run for my life…
However if it was my daughter or wife I’d be on that bear’s back biting him in the neck.
what would Gandolf yell to us?
I wonder if there’s a German word for “sudden realization that this news story is just like the punchline of an old joke.”
Glacier National Park is incredibly beautiful but it’s also grizzly territory. It’s really dangerous to go mountain biking or trail running in these areas since you can surprise a bear very easily.
Hikers are recommended to carry bear spray, but that’s mostly to give you courage to stand your ground during what is hopefully a bluff charge.
Bear spray and bear bells to make lots of noise so the bears know you’re coming. Although I know a lot of people hate bear bells because they go hiking to get some peace and quiet.
I’ve been following this story and it sounds like a sow with cubs was surprised. Never surprise a bear. Never ever surprise a bear. It’s hard to avoid when you’re moving fast on a mountain bike.
Last week, I was hiking alone in the woods (Shut up! I get off the BBS and go outside sometimes!) and I hear a loud snap and looked off the trail where I saw a pair of black ears behind a large bush. Later I would go home and spend an hour looking at bear ears and the tops of heads online to make sure, but sure as shit it was a bear and I knew it when I saw it. It was surprising because it was close to a road in an area that gets a fair amount of hikers. I handled it wrong in some ways and right in others. I didn’t freak out and run, which considering that I didn’t believe my own eyes, was probably what stopped me from freaking out.
Then I turned away from the bear and walked away at a normal slowish pace, where I should have kept my eyes on him. I waited until I’d moved off and heard it rustling away, and then I started making more noise as I walked by clapping and slapping the ground with my walking stick (AKA a tree branch I picked up.) . I didn’t have bear spray, because I was planning a two-hour hike and didn’t have much of anything. Fortunately black bears are less dangerous, but apparently (as I discovered when I started frantically Googling later) they’re on the rise in my area. Apparently I got lucky and saw my first bear outside of a zoo that day. The distance from this preserve to people’s back yards is nominal, and yet there it was. I’m still kicking myself that I handled it so poorly. It just goes to show you that you can’t take bear safety for granted.
What I’ve heard is that they’re not as effective as making other kinds of noise. I recall reading that someone experimented with scaring off bears and found that snapping a pencil was more effective than the bells, which they seemed to ignore. The speculation is that it’s not a sound that they know how to react to. The advice I’ve read seems to converge on yodeling, singing, clapping, or travelling in relatively large groups.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but here’s an infamous scene from The Revenant.
Then consider how a bear attack survivor evaluated the scene.
Although I will say that despite her skepticism about the attack, the movie was based on a true story although the historical figure had help killing the bear.
I saw more than a few on a long hike I took, and my strategy every time* was that, at the moment I saw the bear, I would start making really loud noises whether with my voice, hiking poles, tree branches, just basically yelling at the bear and clacking the sticks and generally trying to make myself a nuisance. Curious how many other hikers heard my yelling, “GET OUTTA HERE BEAR!” I figured that, at the very least, the bears would find me annoying (not an uncommon opinion) and they might recall my behavior and vocalizations the next time they encountered a human. I only had one or two bears that completely disregarded my vocalized nuisance (and both were fairly small), but I kept it up anyway in the hopes it might stick.
*I’ve written about it on BB before, but there was one bear, pretty much the biggest I’ve ever seen, and when I saw it, I felt as though my brain turned to mush and I wasn’t able to utter anything more than a very quiet “eeeeep!” It’s one time where I really was speechless.
Hiking in bear country: take some bear spray, clean any fish you catch FAR AWAY from your campsite, use the bear lockers to store food, and basically keep your eyes peeled. The bears are out there, and lemme tell you–even the biggest ones are damn near silent in the woods.
**FWIW I didn’t wear bear bells, but I did carry a can of bear spray.
I just took a wilderness course, and their suggestion (among several others) was: if you see a bear, take off your backpack and hold it over your head so that you look bigger than them, and they decide not to fight the enormous thing.
That scenario has been my biggest fear for my kids on their bikes. Bears and Moose. You do not want to surprise them.
Unless you can surprise the bear with a moose…
That’s for black bears isn’t it? Grizzlies are just ornery if they’re hungry or you’re too close.
