SHIT!
Wrong universe. Your title is from the Hyperion series, right Flinx?
That messes up my elegant reference. This question could be effectivly conveyed in Primal.
I hope you get MY reference. If not ask that flying reptile on your shoulder.
peace
My very wise Woodsman-Uncle used to say:
“Never let yourself be seen
a mother bear and cubs between.”
I always thought that sage advice, though I did read somewhere that the lone male bear is more dangerous than a mother bear and young.
My only close-up encounter with black bears occurred in a remote section of the Shenandoah National Park. I was hiking with my dog (off a leash against the rules)and rounded a curve in the trail coming face to face with a large black bear and 3 cubs. I immediately lay on the ground and was trying to figure out exactly how to pretend to be dead when I heard my dog barking in the distance. This medium black lab was chasing all 4 bears up the side of the mountain and over the ridge. I figured my stupid dog would be toast, but a short while later he was back panting with a grin a mile wide on his canine face. So much for playing dead.
I also remember a statistic I heard in Glacier Park several years ago. A Park handout said that only 1 in 10 close encounters with a grizzly bear will result in an attack, and only 1 in 10 of those will result in a fatality. Furthermore, we all know that in this country whenever a bear gets uppity and kills a human, it is immediately sent to bear heaven by a score of vengeful hunters. Maybe somehow the bears know it too.
2sense wrote:
No, it’s from the Wizard of Oz, actually (the movie, not the book). Pip says so, and I believe him. It’s not wise to disagree with Pip… Oh wait, you mean my user name? It’s from Alan Dean Foster’s “Flinx” series, set in the “Humanx Commonwealth” Universe.
Flinx,
I think the reference in Hyperion came from the movie. You don’t want to get me started on the movie, I have a rant. Although I haven’t actually read the book. I did read a sequel, Frank Baum’s Dot and Tot in Merryland or somewhere. It’s late again.
Since the reptile can’t spit on me from here, I will point out that his memory in not the best. IIRC he only has a class C mind.
peace
Back in the olden days ('69 to '71) I was stationed in Anchorage at the USAF Hospital. All us cheechakos (they told us it meant “honored guest”) had to do a day of “Arctic Orientation” on important stuff like wearing your snuggies when it’s 50 below.
We got an hour of instruction on wildlife and the bear guy said: “There’s good news and bad news about Brown Bears. The Good News is that they can’t climb trees so, if you meet one climb a tree quick. The Bad News is a full grown Brown stands 15 feet tall in his stocking feet…and the tallest tree in Alaska is 12 feet tall.”
Then they told us about the Wily Alaskan Snow Snake.
JBENZ: They didn’t give you any info on the ice worms? About the bells - lots of folks wear them and I guess it’s okay for now, but let me tell you about the bears on Montague Island. We actually have deer up here in Alaska and they are found on some of the islands. One of the more popular places to hunt these small deer is Montague Island. People have been hunting deer on that island for a long time. The local bears have developed an almost Pavlovian reaction to gunfire - they have ‘learned’ that a gunshot means that a deer could be laying dead somewhere waiting for the bear to have a snack! The bears therefore investigate the area from whence came the shot. Many hunters have experienced the arrival of a large brown bear while attempting to retrieve their deer. So if the bears finally figure out what’s up with those little bells… One final note and then I’ll stop (I could go on and on about bears - I think they are pretty neat critters). In the last few years, we seem to be seeing more and more bears in the inhabitated areas of Alaska. Even in downtown Anchorage, bears are appearing with alarming regularity. We even had a brown bear walking close to the school bus stop in my neighborhood in Eagle River (ten miles outside Anchorage). This is, of course, due to human encroachment on the bears’ natural habitat and, even more importantly, due to negligent behavior on the part of people who leave garbage and pet food outside during times when bears are most apt to be looking for easy meals (spring and fall). We frequently see moose and sometimes wolves in urban environs, but bears are rare enough to cause a full-scale panic and the attendant over-reactions of city folks. On a humourous note, we recently had a young bear climb over the fence into the Alaska Zoo! I guess the attraction of the regular meal ticket was enough to convince this wrong-way corrigan that the zoo was a good place to be…
I know Cecil answered this in his second book. Unfortunately, its back in Ohio and I can’t read it. No one here has the second Straight Dope book? Its in there; the answer to how to approach bears.
2sense, The End of the Matter is one of the “Flinx” books. There are 7 of them:
For Love of Mother-Not
The Tar-Aiym Krang
Orphan Star
The End of the Matter
Bloodhype
Flinx in Flux
Mid-Flinx
We now return you to footage of grizzly bears eating people.
That is really quite interesting.
Okay, 2sense, you can WHOOOOOSH! me now for misinterpreting what you were saying. I thought you thought that The End of the Matter was the only Flinx book or something. Mid-day posts, you know…LOL.
I may as well join you in your Whoosh, Flinx. I just realized the second book of Cecil’s mentions bears being attracted by women’s motnhly cycles(no, Not Honda’s).
Forget I said anything…crawling into the woods, probably to be eaten by a black bear…
peaches8: it’s a fairly common practice up here to take a lady friend with you on a bear hunt to use as…uh, er, um… a bear attractant(?). And she may even help pack the lunch! But only because she will be helping to eat it and she never developed a taste for vienna sausages, pickles, and pork rinds…
That reminds of another question I should start a thread on: do ladies have different dietary requirements than men? Better start a new thread or somebody will be extremely displeased with me.
Look how nicely I have separated my thoughts into individual paragraphs!!! (see rant in BBQ Pit for clarification)
If the bear has a shiner
You’ve landed in China
Peace.
Ice worms are just baby Wily Alaskan Snow Snakes.
My job, not the most sophisticated, you’ll agree, involved dumping the mess hall trash in the middle of the night. So one night I goes out with my cans abut 2 AM and opened the dumpster. The Black Bear therein says “WOOOF!” Sez I: “Holy Shit!” (Extemporaneous dialogue was never my strong suit.) Said bear and I agreed to avoid socializing…probly as a result of my slamming the dumpster door on his nose. Subsequent excursions to the dumpster involved banging a trash can on the side to make sure it was vacant.
Tune in next time boys and girls when we tell the tale of the moose on the porch.
hmmmmm,
I was always told that when a bear attacks, you should stand your ground and punch him in the nose.
Then when that doesn’t work, you should beat him with the stump!
-Luckie
“It’s a joke son, get it?”
-Foghorn Leghorn