BEARS! Help keep me safe from these godless killing machines.

[The_Second_Stone]

Black bears will leave you alone if you leave them alone. The only danger from a black bear would be one with cubs. Leave them alone. Black bears are the Amish of bears.

[EmAnJ]

All good advice.

One additional piece: don’t test your BEAR! spray in your campsite. They like the smell.

[Declan]

I heard that the bears offensive line kinda sucked this year, so I would not be totally concerned about charging bears. Now special teams, like Yogi and pooh and booboo, then the pucker factor would go up.

Declan

[Little_Nemo]

It’s deeply insulting to “bears” (the preferred term is Ursine-Americans) to call them godless. While it’s true that their traditional animist beliefs are different from mainstream Christianity as practiced by many humans, I don’t see how we can claim that one faith is better than the other. But serve the needs of their societies.

The part about them being killing machines, on the other hand, is straight truth. Most bears are in fact cybernetic murderers sent back from some dark dystopian future on a mission to reduce human numbers until there are too few of us left to resist conquest and enslavement.

So make sure to clean up leftovers around your campsite and avoid perfumes and colognes. Happy camping.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@The_Second_Stone

Black bears will leave you alone if you leave them alone. The only danger from a black bear would be one with cubs. Leave them alone.

Defense of cubs is a brown/grizzly trait. Black bears teach cubs to climb as practically the first thing the do after leaving the den, and will screech at the cubs to climb at the first sign of threat. Dr. Rogers describes entering dens and handling the cubs with only passive distress by the sow.

The handful of reported attacks every decade are either defensive attacks (when a bear is lured close to humans by food and then becomes defensive) or the very, very rare incidence of a truly predatory bear (about 1 in 600,000 display predatory behavior). Even brown and grizzly bears are not much more aggressive under normal circumstances (although polar bears have a well-deserved reputation for aggressiveness). Black bears are basically the ursine equivilent of gorillas; powerful, loud, and prone to shows of aggression when provoked, but almost completely harmless. There is actually a video showing a young adult bear being treed by an overly confident housecat.

Stranger

[Telemark]

Cars are pretty much bear proof. Unless you are in a few isolated places where bears have figured out how to break into cars (Yosemite, mainly) you are perfectly safe putting your food in the car.

[Spiderman]

Well, since no one’s offered it, a bear avoidance kit: a hammer, a fork & directions.
Go out to the road, hammer the fork in between the yellow lines. Leave the directions: “At the fork in the road, bear left.” You continue to the right.

[Lamar_Mundane]

@Telemark

Cars are pretty much bear proof. Unless you are in a few isolated places where bears have figured out how to break into cars (Yosemite, mainly) you are perfectly safe putting your food in the car.

Does a bear shift in the woods?

His 17-year-old son Ben, who usually drives the car, had left a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a stick of deodorant in the car, which is probably what attracted the bear, according to officials.
Early in the morning, a black bear opened an unlocked car door. After he got in, the door closed behind him, Story said.
The Storys believe that as the bear shuffled around the car looking for a way out, he bumped into the gearshift and put the automatic transmission into neutral, sending the car rolling 125 feet back down a hill. It hit a few trees before coming to a stop in some brush.

http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=3122413

http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/bear-drives-teens-car-11237038

[colonial]

Where are people getting the idea that Black Bears are nothing to be afraid of?

ALL ADULT BEARS ARE DANGEROUS, definitely including Black Bears, who per Wiki
have since 2000 killed 19 people in North America, including victims in Pennsylvia,
Ohio, New York and Tennessee, where the bear population is likely to be less dense
than in the Upper Peninsula.

You better watch your damn step with those critters.

[I_Know_Nothing]

I probably should have posted a link earlier for those people not in the know.

Colbert Report Godless Killing Machines mashup

I am a proud member of the Colbert Nation.

[Flyer]

OP, be glad that you don’t live in Colorado.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/bear-140414-officers-tranquilized.html

http://www.gazette.com/articles/bear-119255-christophel-monument.html

http://www.gazette.com/articles/bear-138367-lockdown-spotted.html

http://www.gazette.com/news/wedding-139921-bear-neal.html

http://www.gazette.com/sports/officials-119889-hotel-bear.html

http://www.gazette.com/articles/park-125776-soccer-bear.html

http://www.gazette.com/articles/bear-121937-stephenson-chicken.html

[Chefguy]

@colonial

Where are people getting the idea that Black Bears are nothing to be afraid of?

Where would you get that notion? Five of their six ends have points on them. In the bear world, however, blackies are far less unpredictable than grizzlies, and won’t normally hunt a human like both grizzlies and polar bears will. All wildlife should be respected. In fact, many more people are seriously injured by deer than by any other animal out there.

[Rachellelogram]

I heard *Ursus maritimus *likes the Col’ Bear nation.

[Little_Nemo]

@Chefguy

Where would you get that notion? Five of their six ends have points on them. In the bear world, however, blackies are far less unpredictable than grizzlies, and won’t normally hunt a human like both grizzlies and polar bears will. All wildlife should be respected. In fact, many more people are seriously injured by deer than by any other animal out there.

Are black bears really less dangerous? Or are they just clever enough to alter the evidence and set innocent deer up to be their fall guys?

[running_coach]

Don’t text and walk towards a bear at the same time.

[The_Second_Stone]

@colonial

Where are people getting the idea that Black Bears are nothing to be afraid of?

ALL ADULT BEARS ARE DANGEROUS, definitely including Black Bears, who per Wiki
have since 2000 killed 19 people in North America, including victims in Pennsylvia,
Ohio, New York and Tennessee, where the bear population is likely to be less dense
than in the Upper Peninsula.

You better watch your damn step with those critters.

I’ve passed bears in California while walking one way on a road and them walking the other. Big ones. Can’t speak for eastern bears, grizziles, Kodiaks or Polar, all of which I’d avoid their habitats.

[Washoe]

@I_Know_Nothing

Charge a friggin BEAR!. Really?

I used to chase them, so sure. Good fun.

[loshan]

I live on a dirt road proudly named Black Bear Way for a reason. They have busted down the fence to my orchard - in the FALL when the fruit is ripe - and that’s it. They run if I open the door. They’ve never gotten into my garbage because it is locked up and because I have dogs that “piss the perimeter” .
You are camping in an apple orchard now, when there are no apples. You have other people around you and are in a known (to the bears) scary place. Sleep easy. No bear will get you.

[Shamozzle]

@colonial

Where are people getting the idea that Black Bears are nothing to be afraid of?

Agreed. The tone around here is a bit dismissive w/re to black bears.

Any bear is to be respected and avoided. They are unpredictable and powerful. Most are fearful and would rather have nothing to do with you. Some, however, are clearly not intimidated by human presence and a few will go as far as they please in helping themselves to the goodies in you car, tent, campsite or cabin, whether you are around or not.

I read a recommendation upthread that one should charge black bears. This is just not wise as a general practice. The tiny ones, well, ok. But black bears can get really big and if you are charging these bears, well, perhaps you should bring a wheelbarrow into the forest with you to ease the transport of your massive testicles and to prevent scuffing due to all the dragging. Charging bears? WTF? Do you really want to find out that you got that one bear who thinks, ‘Well how about that. Things just got really interesting around here.’

But, as pointed out earlier, make noise, be sensible, store all of your smelly stuff away from you and downwind, and don’t worry about it.

And don’t test your bear spray. At all. It is nasty, nasty stuff.

[PlainJain]

@I_Know_Nothing

It’s mostly the irrational carnal fear of what happens when I’m asleep in my tent that I’m trying to dampen.

You’ll be fine. It is irrational. I have, however, woke up to find some pretty big Puma tracks circling my tent, that’ll get your attention!