I think it’s a bad idea to run from any predator, unless you are faster than they are. If you are close to the bear, it is faster than you. (Bears just sprint, though, so if you are far, and a good runner, you might be okay.)
Always bring a friend with you when you are out in bear country. Just make sure you can run faster than your friend.
In my days planting trees as a summer student job in British Columbia, we would tell the newbies that you can tell the difference between black bears and grizzlies by climbing a tree. If the bear climbs up after you, it’s a black bear, and if it knocks the tree over, it’s a grizzly.
Joking aside, don’t run from either bear initially. Make yourself big and act “human” - talk, etc.
The biggest difference is if you are attacked by a Grizzly, you can play dead. If you are attacked by a black bear, that won’t work (they eat dead things).
Much more here: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/safety.htm
OK, yeah, I was mixed up.
Delete “run from” and insert “play dead”.
Good thing I didn’t see any bears today.
mmm
It’s not so much about eating dead things, it’s about whether an attack signifies an attempt to neutralize a threat or a plan to eat you.
You should do the same thing initially with any bear encounter. Definitely do not run or scream. Stand up, stand together, make yourself look big, talk calmly.
Black bears are smaller and evolved in the presence of larger predators, so their default conflict resolution strategy is to run away. There is rarely any sustained attack on humans, if they are bothering people it is because they have become emboldened by learning that there is easy food to be found around humans in tents or cars. But know that since a Black bear that feels threatened will run away, if a Black bear does attack you it is not trying to neutralize a threat. It has decided you are prey and it plans to eat you. So in the highly unlikely scenario of a Black bear pursuit and sustained attack, you must fight back aggressively in any way you can and try to get away.
Whereas the larger Brown bear evolved somewhat more aggressive conflict resolution insincts. It is more dangerous and more likely to attack, but when it does attack it is more likely to be just attempting to neutralize a threat, so playing dead may work.
Great clarification, thanks!
I’ve never been around Brown Bears (thankfully) but the “trash bears” (human-acclimated black bears) around the Smokys were shockingly bold and seem to have no fear of humans at all, seeing them primarily as a source of easy food.
I’ve heard this a lot, but both species eat dead things so I’m skeptical that it’s true or it’s ever actually worked for anyone.
As I said above, the behavioral difference noted by @Jas09 was correct, just not for that reason.
And of course all behavior in higher animals mediated by instinct is a tendency to behave a certain way, so none of these observations predict what any wild animal will do with certainty. I think what the advice amounts to is this:
In the face of a rare pursuit and sustained attack by a Black bear (not a brief conflict when you’re trying to scare it away from your Cheetoh supply), it is almost certainly planning to kill and eat you. So even though you are not likely to win a fight with a bear, you have nothing to lose: fight back as aggressively as you can and try to escape.
In the face of an attack by a Brown bear, there is a significant chance that it might be attacking primarily to neutralize a threat. Given the certain bad outcome from fighting, it makes sense to try playing dead to see how the bear responds. There is no guarantee. Both bears are omnivorous and somewhat opportunistic feeders, a Brown bear may certainly decide you are dinner.
@Riemann corrected my misunderstanding of the cause of the behavior, but if you doubt that playing dead can work when attacked by a Grizzly, there are plenty of first-hand stories available.
Here is one: "Luckier than hell" hiker survives grizzly bear attack by playing dead | Advnture
And another: Hiker survives mother grizzly attack by playing dead in Kananaskis | CBC News
It seems to be particularly effective if it’s a female Grizzly with a cub. Their primary interest is in neutralizing the threat and reuniting with their cub. By playing dead they may stop attacking and head off to find their cub.
There may also be a factor that you have at least some (minimal) chance in a fight with a (smaller) black bear. If you can injure it with a stick or knife it may decide you aren’t worth it. But you basically have zero chance in a fight with a brown bear.
You have zero chance in a fight with a black bear if the black bear actually fighting, even a relatively young/small specimen. It’s just that there’s a chance it will decide to back down and skedaddle, even after attacking you. Fighting back against the black bear is not about beating it, just about causing it to reconsider its decision to attack.
If it’s brown, lay down.
If it’s black, fight back.
If it’s white, good night.
Since we seem to have enough factual answers for humorous follow-ups to be allowed…
How to tell the difference between a brown bear and a black bear:
Climb a tree. If the bear climbs up the tree to eat you, it’s a black bear. If it knocks down the tree to eat you, it’s a brown bear.
I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer to “can we take a grizzly from the interior, and plop him on the coast to where he has access to plenty of food, and ‘cause’ him to grow to be morphologically distinct from other local brown bears?”
I’m still uncomfortable calling interior Alaskan grizzlies a ‘subspecies’ of brown bears if their morphological differences are largely due to their environment. Otherwise, we can call a bunch of different populations of animals a ‘subspecies’ only because they look a little different because they eat shitty food.
No. He might get a little fatter than he would have living in the interior from a seasonal supply of salmon. Living there all his life he might get a little enhancement from a more nutritious diet just like humans raised on vitamin enriched food, but he’d remain genetically smaller than his coastal cousin. The sub-species tag means little though, the coastal and inland species are different populations in this case, they have similarities that can be found in any group of animals that develop in different regions, but not with a number of distinct acquired genetic changes over time. A group of bears from the interior moved to the coast over generations might develop greater size due to the availability of food and better reproductive success just like the coastal bears did (or maintained over time). The morphological differences are not great at all, they are just family traits.
The term sub-species just means some arbitrary category of members of species sharing genetic traits not found throughout a species.
I learned something from this thread. I didn’t know that there were two different grizzly populations, or that inland grizzlies are smaller than coastal ones.