The idea that the father should have “used his mind” is ridiculous, for one, he did use his mind. And the vast majority of people out there have bad reaction times in a crisis situation. A lot of parents would have tried something to save their child, but a lot of them probably would have tried something dumb like running towards the tyke and trying to carry him off (running from a bear is not a smart thing to do.)
The idea that the guy was dumb for not having a gun in the wilderness is also ludicrous. I’m a hunter and a gun owner. During hunting season (unless it’s bow season) yeah, I’m going to have a gun with me in the woods, primarily because I’m well, hunting. However, I love the wilderness and love hiking. I try to get out some of the wonderful forest-land in the mountains on the western edge of my state (Virginia) as often as possible, and I own a small cabin there.
When I’m hiking, I never carry a weapon. Why? Well, because I’ve been hiking these woods for like 45 years, going all the way back to when I was six years old and was hiking with my dad. I know the threats and I know that I don’t really need a gun.
The most dangerous animal, as far as ability/desire to attack and kill a human in the forests of the eastern United States are mountain lions (a type of panther to people not familiar with them.) When hungry, they will stalk human beings as prey and kill them, one of them killed a female jogger in California a few years ago and was spotted from a helicopter stalking a park ranger who was out looking for it. However the number of these animals in the woods around here is incredibly low. In all those 45 years I’ve seen exactly zero mountain lions, we know they’re out there, but they are a small population. If one of them approached me, yes I’d want a gun. But since the incidence of them attacking people in the United States is virtually zero, and I’ve never seen one in 45 years of hiking the wilderness, I feel no reason to carry.
I see black bears all the time black bears are so populous in the forests of the eastern U.S. that most States have a hunting season on them and their populations continue to grow. They’re incredibly shy and reclusive creatures. When I see them it’s because they don’t see me. When they realize I’m there, they run away. This is how they respond to humans, who are relatively unfamiliar to them. Black bears are omnivorous but in truth are very very close to being herbivores because the vast majority of their diet is plant matter. The animal matter that they do eat tends to be grubs and other insects. It’s very rare for a black bear to take down game, I think it’s estimated that your average adult black bear may kill one deer per year (this is also why deer are overpopulated in the U.S., their primary predator was traditionally packs of wolves, humans have intentionally driven wolves completely out of the eastern U.S.)
Black bears just simply don’t want to have a conflict with humans. Any time a black bear attacks a human, it’s because they felt threatened and felt they had no other choice, or because you tried to take their food. Black bears don’t view humans as prey, even when hungry. However, if they’ve discovered a delicious picnic basket, woe be to anyone who tries to take it from them. Black bears like their food, and they won’t give it up without a fight. Black bears kill more people than any other bear in the United States, the vast majority of the time it is indeed because of humans who acted improperly around them. The first mistake this family did make was leaving food out in the open, which a bear can smell from miles away. The second mistake they made was provoking the bear. The bear was interested in their food, it wasn’t interested in making them into food.
Despite my tongue-in-cheek comment about the bear eating the child, that wouldn’t have really happened, the bear was attacking because it thought the child was trying to take his food. Once the child was no longer a threat he’d have wandered off (note that this exchange would probably leave the child dead.) What the dad did was pretty much the exactly proper thing to do if you’ve already messed up and are having a close-encounter with a black bear. You throw shit at them and yell at them, it’s surprising the log killed the bear and kind of a freak occurrence.
Now, if I happened to live in Polar bear or Grizzly bear country I would probably carry some sort of side arm with me. Grizzly bears and polar bears have no fear of man and do view us as prey. Grizzlies tend to get a larger portion of their diet from plant matter than polar bears do, so a grizzly may ignore you if it isn’t hungry. But if it’s hungry, it will stalk and kill you as if you were any other type of prey. Polar bears tend to get almost the entirety of their diet from meat, and if they see meat walking around, it’s chow time.
But I’ve also never seen a polar bear or grizzly bear in Virginia (I have seen a few grizzlies in my life, but much farther north and west.) Note that this story took place in Georgia, with forests that are part of the same range as the ones we have in VA and with the same animals.