Should you play dead if a bear is chasing you?

Factual Questions
41

[QUOTE=enipla]
I’ve found this to be true where I live. Banging pans and yelling does not seem to always work.

Had one just walk off about 50 feet and sit down and watch us. **Perhaps he thought we where putting on a show.
**
Anyway, a firearm shot in his general direction convinced him to move.
[/QUOTE]

Bear: “Honey, get over here! Look what the weird, hairless things are doing. I think I read about this in Reader’s Digest last week. Performance art or something. That’s what they call it. Uncivilized, that’s what they are.”

42

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
I believe you have these switched. While there are anecdotal stories of unprovoked black bear attacks this is highly atypical behavior. Brown/grizzly bears are (somewhat) more likely to be predatory, but again, the actual statistics on bear attacks demonstrate that they are one of the less likely hazards of backcountry travel.

Stranger
[/QUOTE]

Ive heard this anecdotally from many people, but I take the word of a close friend whom I know to be an excellent scholar with exceptional contacts and first hand experience. He corresponded extensively with several experts on western Canadian bear attacks, in mutually beneficial exchanges. I can not recall the name (I will inquire) but one fellow in particular was seen as an authority on black bear attacks and made the point to him that although Grizzlies are more - lets say ‘excitable’, predatorial black bear attacks were increasingly common. Not that Black Bears are more likely to attack, but that predation was a more common motive.

I know Grizzlies do prey upon humans - we had a fatal attack by a predatory grizzly last summer in Canmore, AB; but generally they only attack when surprised and in reaction to a perceived threat. Most Grizzlies (and Black Bears) however want nothing to do with humans and will clear the area with enough warning. There is a common missunderstanding that the bears will come looking for you (the ‘bell in grizzly shit’ joke is a pretty warn out old saw around here), when in fact the opposite is the case.

The main point is that though mostly gentle and mostly vegetarian, both Black bears and Grizzlies can be very dangerous, but are easily avoided.

43

If you haven’t figured it out yet by reading this thread, there is no single good answer.

Brown bears (e.g. grizzlies) are omnivores and scavengers. If the bear is hungry, then playing dead is not a very good idea. The bear will simply dig in and chow down. Most attacks, though, don’t seem to come from hungry predatory grizzlies, but from aggressive, threatened grizzlies. The “play dead” suggestion comes from watching what a smaller brown bear does when threatened by a bigger one. The bigger one will deal out some punishment (swats, bites…) and then leave the smaller one alone. Of course, something a 300-pound bear considers minor punishment could well be fatal to a human.

If you plan to fight back against a big bear, you’d better have some good weapons. They’re fast, they have sharp claws and powerful jaws, and their thick fur and fat layer protect them well. In the book Decade of the Wolf, the authors describe a grizzly that attacked a huge pack of over 20 wolves (!!!) and took away their kill. Any critter that can successfully fight off 20 wolves won’t have too much trouble with an unarmed human.

Running won’t accomplish a thing. Grizzlies can run as fast as 45 miles per hour, and have been timed sprinting 180 feet in 3 seconds. Running on four feet makes them stable going uphill, downhill, or sideways.

Bear spray is good, but one thing about it makes me nervous. They say that the effective range is about 6 feet. If the bear is coming at you at 60 feet per second, you have .1 seconds to stop the bear once it’s in bear spray range. Ouch.

Many of the bear attack books have agendas; authors who thing there’s only one right way to deal with a bear and document cases that back up their thesis. One exception that I really liked is a book called Mark of the Grizzly, where the author analyzed every recorded grizzly attack in every U.S. and Canadian national park. He then describes what happened to the guy who played dead, the guy who used a gun, the guy who ran, the guy who used bear spray, the guy who whacked the bear with a stick while it ate his wife, and so forth. I read that book while sleeping in a dark campground in Banff. Don’t ever do that.

44

That depends on how long you can sustain a spray from one, and how long the cloud persists. I imagine that if I were using one vs. a bear, I would press the trigger the moment the bear started towards me, and not let go of it until it was empty. Or maybe not until a few hours later, when the park ranger pries it out of my hand.

45

[QUOTE=Bearflag70]
I need a bear costume.
[/QUOTE]

just make sure it isnt bear mating season. Ouch! :eek:

46

I am far more fearful of black bears than grizzly/brown bears. A black bear will consider a human as prey and actively chase/climb after a human and eat s/he. They can climb quite well. They also account for a lot of pets, mostly dogs, going missing. Two cases: A couple was living in a cabin on the mainland off in the woods when a blackie showed up and behaved aggressively. The wife had managed to climb to the roof of the cabin, while the husband managed to get to the skiff and went for help. Upon his return, with backup, the remains of his wife were found, with the blackie working on finishing her off. My eldest daughter, who at the time was 14 years old, was spending some time with her best friend at her best friend’s grandparents house in a suburb of Anchorage. The girls watched as a black bear came out of the woods and made a meal of one of the grandparents dogs during the middle of the afternoon.

I can’t speak on grizzlies with as much authority, even though they and Kodiak bears are the same beast. Kodiaks live on, well, Kodiak, and grizzlies are sometimes coastal, but often live inland. Grizzlies are smaller than Kodiak’s, but I would imagine they behave much the same.

I know Kodiak bears, up close and personal. Pepper spray is for defense against people, IME. In the heat of the moment one isn’t apt to check for wind direction, and a face full of pepper spray is not going to help you out of a Kodiak encounter. Unless you have a mighty big weapon and are a very good shot, a gun isn’t going to help you. I have been around when nuisance bears have been shot, they don’t die easily. Their skulls are incredibly thick, don’t shoot them in the head, it only serves to piss them off. For the most part a Kodiak wants nothing to do with people, and we make a lot of noise when we are out, because a startled bear is not a happy bear. In one instance in particular my husband shooting off his 270 into the air had absolutely no effect on the sow and two cubs in our back yard. When I leaned out the window, beating my frying pans against each other and screaming my head off they jumped and ran. That always worked the best.

If you run into a bear, give the bear the right of way. If the bear makes a charge (generally they will make a couple/few false charges) make yourself as large as possible and holler at the bear. After a couple of feints, generally the bear will wander off. If you are attacked, drop and curl into the fetal position, covering as much of your abdomen as possible with your knees/legs and link your fingers together to cover the back of your neck. Maybe the bear will become disinterested, but more likely the bear will still take a couple of bites for a snack, and then may drag you off and bury you in a shallow depression. Do Not Move, and Don’t Make A Sound until the bear has moved on. This may take a bit of time, and if you move or make noise the bear will probably come back and make sure you are really dead. Kodiaks like their meat to tenderize a bit, and will leave cached carrion for a later meal. If you wait it out, you may get out alive.

However, for the better part, Kodiaks don’t want to bother with humans. I live in bear country, and spent time in the Bush where I saw bears up close and personal on an almost daily basis. Kodiaks don’t hibernate, they den up during cold storms, but there are always a few wandering around. Mostly bears who didn’t get enough food before the salmon quit running and have become garbage bears. These are the bears to worry about. They break into smokehouses, raid dried fish racks, and frequently bust into homes. These are the bears which are put down. I recall one bear in particular, big old boar who had been knocking over smokehouses and breaking people’s doors, and generally becoming very bold and aggressive. The night they took him out was memorable in that there were at least five men, armed with large calibre semiautomatic rifles, and when they began firing it sounded like a war. The guns were rattling away, gun smoke in the air, and the roars and thrashings of the old bear made a fearful racket. It took at least 15 minutes, more like 25, before the bear became still. The next morning I walked around the bend in the road where the bear was killed, and it looked as if there had been a war. Bushes and small trees were uprooted and flung around, the ground itself was torn to hell, and the guy who Fish And Wildlife had given to okay to take out nuisance bears was already out and skinning the bear. He had already detached the head, and I don’t think I could have wrapped my arms around it, it was a huge bear. (When a bear is killed In Defense of Life and/or Property it must be skinned, and decapitated, with the hide and head going to Fish and Wildlife to be sealed, in order to avoid poachers)

Timothy “Idiot” Treadwell got what was coming to him, he broke the rules. It’s too bad that the girlfriend had to die as well, but Tim was a meal waiting to happen. If you watch Herzog’s documentary, when Tim went back to his camp all the bears who were familiarized with him had headed for higher ground. The old boar, Oly, who ate him was hungry, the fish had quit running, and you can see the bear sizing Tim up. He wasn’t going to survive the winter, and he did what starving bears do.

I do not fear bears. I do respect them. It pisses me of righteously when some idiot causes the death of an otherwise normal bear doing it’s bear thing.

Sorry for the length, I have lots of bear stories, and feel strongly that it’s best to live and let live whenever possible. Just for an example of size, here is a now deceased bear guide I knew, his grandson is my son’s godfather. This is a fairly average size Kodiak bear, just for reference. I would guess his original height at ten feet+. http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d79/kaiwik/P_AlexAndBear.jpg

47

[QUOTE=Dead Pete]
Are bears really that stupid, to suppose that someone is actually dead whom they actually saw very much alive a moment before?
[/QUOTE]

It always worked for Elmer Fudd.

48

[QUOTE=kaiwik]
Sorry for the length, I have lots of bear stories…
[/QUOTE]
On the contrary, there is nothing like first-hand experience. I, for one, would love to hear more.

49

Well, let’s see. It was during my first summer in the village, I was finally settled in my own house, my friend (and future sil) were hanging out, playing cribbage in the kitchen while my two daughters and her son played together in the living room. It was about this time of year when the days are so long, and it only begins to think about dusk around 10:30 pm. I had a dog, half beagle and half Border Collie, the best bear dog ever. (I knew the dam and sire, both purebred, and between them they made the absolute best bear dogs ever. More on that another time. So my dog, Luther, was barking his fool head off, and my future fil and bil each had a huge, purebred black Labrador Retriever. Big, stout dogs. My future mil lived two doors up from me, and my future fil lived down on Boneyard Beach, down the road past my house. These two dogs were always coming up on my porch, where Luther should have been able to feel safe, and beating the snot out of him. And it was pissing me off. So, this one particular evening it was at that difficult-to-see light time, and Luther was kicking up a racket on the front porch. I looked out the window and damn if it wasn’t those two labs harassing my little dog from the road. So I stormed out the door, crossed the yard, stooping to grab some throwing rocks, hollering my head off and hucking rocks at them as I went. They turned and began to kind of gambol toward me. OMG, it’s not the dogs, it’s two three year old cubs, males, out on their own for their first summer. I turned and beat feet for the door. I went in and told my future sil that there were two bears in the yard, to which she replied “Bullshit.” I pulled her over to the window, and there were the two bears. They were looking up at us, and sniffing around, acting, I swear to God, just like big ol’ goofy puppies. We had some ladyfingers (tiny firecrackers) which we lit and tossed out the window, but the little pops only seemed to intrigue them. We whooped and hollered, and they hung around for a while, probably ten minutes, before they ambled off.

50

[QUOTE=FRDE]
I once read that American Indians reckoned that if a woman ran into a bear, then she should bare her breasts to show that she is female.
[/QUOTE]

Not quite. That’s what a woman should do if she runs into a Smokey.

51

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
I believe you have these switched.
[/QUOTE]

If I recall correctly Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (Stephen Herrero), then he was right, in general.

The idea is that Black Bears are shy and will generally retreat (up a tree or run away) from surprises and strange things. So if a Black bear is attacking you, it’s probably not scared but trying to eat you. In which case fighting back is the only option.

Conversely, Grizzlies (which are evolved for more treeless habitats), tend to charge strange, surprising things (especially mothers). If they’re just charging a threat, they’re likely to just want to knock you down, establish dominance, and then move on. So if a Grizzly charges in a threat situation (you surprised it), the thing to do is play dead/passive. If it seems more likely the Grizzlie is thinking of you as prey (it was stalking you) then fight back.

In all cases of course, the first thing to do is to avoid the attack by looking big but not aggressive and slowly moving away. Or better yet run for shelter if that’s an option.

52

[QUOTE=kaiwik]
Pepper spray is for defense against people, IME.
[/QUOTE]
Bear spray and “people” pepper spray are different. Although the contents are similar, the bear spray is significantly higher volume and comes in significantly bigger containers. That said, a highway patrol friend of mine has told me about some of the people (mostly bikers) that have kept coming at him even after being pepper-sprayed in the face. If a bear is really pissed off at you, I don’t think the pepper spray will stop him. If he’s just toying with you, though, the bear spray will help.

[QUOTE=kaiwik]
Timothy “Idiot” Treadwell got what was coming to him, he broke the rules. It’s too bad that the girlfriend had to die as well, but Tim was a meal waiting to happen.
[/QUOTE]
You’ve got that right! I had an interesting chat with Mike Lapinski when he was in my bookstore doing a book signing for Death in the Grizzly Maze: The Timothy Treadwell Story. He had some very interesting tales that didn’t make it into the press releases.

53

I’ll concede that it might deter a mildly curious bear, however I have watched bears chew on things that were supposedly deterrents, including cayenne pepper and the ammonia bottle I had emptied around the doors and tossed into the trash. In fact, it chewed the ammonia bottle (still containing some ammonia) before it went on with it’s scavenging, as if it had been the appetizer. When I worked on the Exxon Oil Spill Cleanup (an oxymoron if there ever was one) Veco issued every one bottles of bear repellent, big cans of mega dose pepper spray. It never made me feel any safer, and there were those who tried it out in bear areas, and the bears did not seem to be fazed. I’ve never known it to be used in a full blown charge/mauling, at least not by anyone I ever knew who has lived in bear country for a significant length of time. As a matter of fact I have heard stories about bears continuing a mauling even when their heart was blown to shreds in their chest. I repeat, Kodiak bears do not die easily.

What Treadwell did was not only foolish, but against the law. He spent a significant amount of time in Kodiak, and the majority of us old timers considered him a fool from the get go. Oh, there are a handful of Greenies and New Agers who thought he was some kind of bear guru. He was stupid. Yeah, I have heard details regarding the incident which didn’t make it into Herzog’s documentary. I bought the dvd out of curiosity, and no one in the house has bothered to finish watching it. The shots of the bears and fox and scenery are all Alaska, but Timmy was a nutcase, and the first time I saw that old boar, Oly, standing in the creek while Treadwell turned his back on the bear to speak into the camera I saw his death in that old bear’s eyes. Just thinking about that old boar’s expression makes the hair on my arms stand up.

Kodiak bears (and it is Kodiak bears with which I have personal experience) all have individual personalities. For the last few years I lived in the village there were three sows with cubs who were in the village daily. One sow had two cubs, one had three, and one had four. The first two mamas were all about being bears and taking care of their babies. I encountered them often, even daily for most of the year, and whenever we met up unexpectedly mama and cubs would run one way, and I would walk back into the house. Shaking like hell, but never did I feel threatened. The sow with four cubs was a mean old bitch, she would look me in the eyes, raise her hackles, and I would beat feet. I never trusted her. She charged me once, and I didn’t know I could move that fast! Back on the 4-wheeler and gone, that was me. I have some photos of her somewhere.

I love the bears, they are magnificent, and it makes me angry when they are killed for stupid reasons. Since Treadwell’s death (and that of his girlfriend) not only has the old boar been killed, but another couple of younger bears suspected of having eaten human parts, in addition to several cases of poaching in that area, which continues to be a problem. What Treadwells death did was make ignorant people into bear vigilantes.

54

I thought everyone knew; all you need is a cat. At least the right cat.Picture of the Day: The Cat Who Scared The Bear - Gothamist

55

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]

You have to remember, particularly with respect to black bears, that bears are omnivores and in an evolutionary context are far more commonly prey than predator.

[/QUOTE]

Please provide some sort of citation for this. Male grizzlies will kill cubs, given the chance. Bears of all types have been hunted by humans, much more effectively since the invention of high-powered hunting rifles. Outside of these circumstances, when are bears preyed upon?

56

[QUOTE=kaiwik]
What Treadwell did was not only foolish, but against the law. He spent a significant amount of time in Kodiak, and the majority of us old timers considered him a fool from the get go. Oh, there are a handful of Greenies and New Agers who thought he was some kind of bear guru.
[/QUOTE]
The astounding part is the amount of money he was able to raise. There were organizations in the lower 48 giving him tens of thousands of dollars. Humph.

57

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
While not actually frightened of it, I have it on good authority that polar bears are highly confused by Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Stranger
[/QUOTE]

Better yet, dress up as a penguin if you may encounter Polar Bears. Penguins are Polar Bears natural enemy it takes only 32 seconds for an adult penguin to strip the meat of a polar bear down to it’s skeleton. This explains why there are no polar bears in the antarctic.

58

[QUOTE=Scumpup]
Please provide some sort of citation for this. Male grizzlies will kill cubs, given the chance. Bears of all types have been hunted by humans, much more effectively since the invention of high-powered hunting rifles. Outside of these circumstances, when are bears preyed upon?
[/QUOTE]
From “How Dangerous Are Black Bears?”:The timid, non-confrontational disposition that typifies black bears is the result of more than a million years of living among predators so powerful that black bears did not have a chance against them. Saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and short-faced bears kept black bears near trees and ready to run or climb. The short-faced bear was the largest mammalian predator that ever lived. Worse yet, it was a long-legged bear that could easily run down any black bear foolish enough to stray into the open.
Dr. Rogers is the preeminent authority on the American Black Bear, and has literally spent thousands of hours in close contact with them without a single significant attack.

Bears (both black and grizzly) will kill cubs in order to stimulate a female into ovulating. Bears are primarily omnivores with a widely varied diet which primarily ocnsists of berries, nuts, grubs, ants, and carrion. Black bears will hunt only opportunistically; in some areas, brown bears will actively hunt herd animals and livestock (vital for building up a winter reserve) but it doesn’t represent a majority of their diet. The Kodiak, living near streams in coastal areas, is noted for its fishing skill, harvesting and dependant upon salmon to maintain its large size (this is the second largest existant bear subspecies, next to polar bears).

As for the notion that black bears are aggressive (from the above cite):
Like gorillas, black bears bolster their fearsome reputation with occasional blustery bluff charges. But also like gorillas, their ferocious displays seldom end in contact, and we are learning that black bears can be added to the growing list of animals that were once feared but are now known to be mostly gentle and timid. Their aggressive displays are more ritualized expressions of apprehension than threat.

From herePart of the fascination was the power of the bear. Bears charged or lunged at me. Bears I thought were drugged in dens sometimes turned out to be inhospitable. Bears in culvert traps slapped at the peepholes when I looked in. I thought I was having close calls and I remained cautious. But over the years I realized that not one of the hundreds of “close calls” had ended in contact. Charging bears always stopped, even when I was capturing their squalling cubs. Threatening bears always ran when I jumped at them or threw rocks. Furious bears in culvert traps became suddenly timid when I opened the door for them to escape, exiting only when they saw an escape route that was clear of people…When I realized how minor the threat actually is from black bears, a new research door was opened for me–trying to study them up close like Diane Fossey did gorillas. To my surprise, black bears were more accepting of a person than I had imagined possible. At first the bears were as apprehensive of me as I initially had been of them. They expressed their discomfort with the usual lunges and bluff-threats that black bears do under those situations. I still jumped back when bears bluffed particularly convincingly at close range. Eventually, we both developed a comfort and trust that allowed the bears to go about their peaceful activities and me to expand my attention beyond the bears themselves. Soon our research team was walking through the woods, day or night, watching undisturbed bears forage, play, nap, and mate just a few feet away for 24 hours at a time.

From this study (A Century of Bear-Human Conflict In Alaska: Analyses and Implications) which presents data and analysis of bear attacks in Alaska: It should be no surprise that grizzly/brown bears (Ursus arctos) are far more aggressive than black bears (Ursus americanus). This is borne out by experience throughout North America yet some bear safety books put the 2 species on the same level of aggressiveness. These numbers speak for themselves, however.

On the anecdotal side, I hike the local San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and Eastern/Central Sierra mountains regularly (1-2 backcountry dayhikes a month, 3-4 extended backpacking trips a year). These areas are thick with black bears. I see bear sign regularly; I run across bears occaionally, and I was once accosted by a bear who expressed an interest in the sandwiches in the top compartment of my pack that I foolishly let sit while walking around my campsite, but was easily driven off with some shouting and a few thrown rocks. I’m far more concerned about taking a bad spill, stepping on a rattlesnake, or being caught in a freak snowstorm than I am about being attacked by a bear.

Someone brought up the case of Timothy Treadwell, but Treadwell’s behavior and situation are atypical of a hiker; he deliberately inserted himself into a bear-saturated environment. Even then, he was able to survive for thirteen seasons without serious incident, only being attacked when he stayed past summer season. The bear that attacked him was an older, less able bear who had failed to put on enough weight to survive the winter and likely attacked Treadwell and his girlfriend out of desperation for protein and fat. (Treadwell was also clearly a nutter, or in clinical terms, manic-depressive, and not very realistic in either the perception of his own safety or the value his “protection” offered the bears.)

Stranger

59

Stranger on a Train,

The evolutionary pressure would seem to predispose bears to be afraid of larger predators, not human beings. I, personally, am not particularly discommoded by bears; I see them from time to time while hunting and they are noted destroyers of corn fields and garbage cans in these parts. But I must consider this: black footed ferrets are subject to predation by coyotes and various raptors. This doesn’t make the ferret hesitant to kill a prairie dog. If the black bear, historically, is not an apex predator, that means little. In most of the same time frame, humans were lower in the food chain.

Dr. Rogers has some interesting things to say. I must also note that, despite his never having been attacked, there are plenty of verifiable accounts of people who have been killed by bears. Jacques Cousteau wasn’t eaten by a shark, either, but that doesn’t mean shark attacks never happen.

One needn’t piss one’s pants at the mere sight of a bear, or start shooting. OTOH, I don’t think I will just casually trust to “evoutionary pressures” either.

60

I’ll bite (so to speak): What were the “tales [about Timothy Treadwell] that didn’t make it into the press releases” and the “incident which didn’t make it into Herzog’s documentary”? A google search turned up accusations that Treadwell lied about pretty much every part of his life story (nation of origin, criminal history, alcoholism, etc.) and one report that he used pepper spray on at least one of his bear buddies. What stories have you heard?