Maybe. I’m not in grizzly country.
Yeah…pretty sure this is probably going to happen, if they can find the bear. As tragic as it is, I guess the idea is you don’t want a gigantic predator roaming around with a taste for humans, in a place where humans frequent. It’s a sad situation all around.
I guess the idea is you don’t want humans frequenting a place with a gigantic predator roaming around with a taste for humans.
FTFY.
From the article:
The explanation is simple: “We have more people, we have more bears, and we have more people living in bear habitat,” John Beechem, a research biologist who studies interactions between bears and humans, told National Geographic in 2010.
[…]
While bears seem to be adapting well to living near humans, scientists say that humans are less accommodating. For most experts, the solution is to educate the public in areas that have high or growing bear populations on how to safely coexist with the bears.
That was the conclusion of a scholarly study published in Scientific Reports in February, entitled “Human behaviour can trigger large carnivore attacks in developed countries,” which generally argued that the problem was not the animals but the humans.
We’re encroaching on their homes, not the other way around. If a Bear walked through your front door, most people would have no compunction about killing the bear to protect their family; why is it any different when we’re wandering through the bear’s (metaphorical) front door?
Edit: extended the quote from the article.
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this is the second time this summer i’ve seen reports of people on bikes having encounters with bears. can’t you get some sort of whistle or something to put on your bike, like you can with cars, to let wildlife know you’re coming? literally running into a bear at a high speed on a bike would just be terrifying for all involved, probably including the bear!
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The two surviving mountain bikers realized they did not have to so much outrun the bear as they had to outrun Brad Treat.
The problem usually being greater human encroachment into areas the gigantic predators usually call their territory.
I’ve got a great idea for cyclists in bear country, how about playing cards in your spokes? They’ll hear you coming, and you can pretend you’re in a racecar!
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Sharknado VII: Bearnado!
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My dad has a cool photo from Alaska of a couple grizzlies who happened upon him when he was fishing.
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Is this the other one?
Or maybe a bearodactyle?
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that’s the one! it’s getting so a bear can’t wander through the living room to get a snack without some human barreling into it, sheesh.
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It would certainly work on me, at least. I know I tend to avoid people out in the woods when they’re yodeling, singing, clapping, or travelling in relatively large groups.
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Last summer my wife and I were floating on the Teton River (near Jackson WY). We had seen a few moose just hanging near the edge, doing moose stuff, but all out in the open. At some point we rounded a tight bend with tons of dense shrubs and bushes on the apex of the turn only to find a cow moose with her calf. We were on the outside of the turn, and there’s this gigantic rage-cow with its spawn twenty feet away from us. What am I going to do, poke it with a fly rod? We got out just fine but that was a tense 45 seconds. When we were well downstream she turned her rear to us and just started peeing. So much pee.
In other news, how do you tell the difference between black bear and grizzly scat?
Black bear scat has berries and grubs in it. Grizzly scat has bells in it and smells like hot sauce.
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I’ve surely held a couple long branches over my head in cat country. Never saw a cat. Did see a wet footprint. Did hear a cat.
“The essence of true wilderness is big mammals that can eat you.” --Edward Abbey
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I have heard the joke before. But Moose are not to be trifled with. I see bear pretty regularly, and most of the time, they have already seen me, and are booking it. But if I walk down to the river and there is a moose hanging out there, it will just look at me. And I can tell it is deciding whether or not to try to take me out. I just ease away, all casual like.
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There is a big ridge near us that is sort of famous for mountain lions and wildcats. My parents are always fussing about that when my kids want to climb up there. Funny though, the cats were there when I was a kid, and they never said a word to me about it when I went up there.
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