The dinner comment was just humor. However, having had personal experience with “bear bells”, I can tell you they are completely ineffective. Experiments done at Katmai, which is Grizzly Central, wherein researchers hid in bushes and rang bells as bears walked by resulted in the following: nothing. As in, the bears would barely (ha!) glance in the direction of the sound, while continuing on their way. A much better tool is a personal alarm that one can buy at Radio Shack for about $10-$15. Pull the lanyard and it starts shrieking. Bears really hate that sort of thing and will generally run. Grizzlies have been known to continue a charge, even when severely wounded. While it’s true that bears usually want to avoid humans, they’re like any other predator: if hungry, they’ll go after any food source.
carnivorousplant: as mentioned, a shotgun with slugs would be the key weapon in that scenario. There are instances of grizzlies being taken down with a handgun (an incident on the Kenai River a few years ago comes to mind), but it’s unusual. The thick layer of fat and muscle and the thick bone of the skull make penetration difficult. Still, it’s all moot, as this poor sod was just in the wrong place, and lingered too long taking photos. I would suspect that a shift in wind sent his scent to the bear, who reacted badly to intrusion into his feeding area. We’ll never know for sure, of course.
Yes that is right. In February of 2010 the law regarding firearms in National Parks was changed. The rules now follow the firearm regulations of the state that the National Park is in.
If you are legally allowed to carry a gun in the state of Alaska, you can carry them in the national parks within Alaska. Same goes for all other states. The firearm laws of the park follow the laws of the state the park is in.
I see the link suggests that you lie down and cover the back of the neck with your hands.
Many years ago I saw the polar bears in Churchill. A local mentioned the same trick. Polar bears typically eat seals, and the first thing they do is pick them up by the neck in their teeth, and give them a good shake to break the neck and kill them so they don’t struggle any more. So if you lie face down and put your hands over the back of your neck, you will live the few extra seconds it takes for the bear to bite your hands off first.
I was watching Les Stroud in the Arctic and he said that polar bears will hunt humans rather than just kill opportunistically. He also made note that he was going to sleep in polar bear country stinking like seal meat (he had a bag of the stuff) and didn’t feel that great about it.
Because humans are not natural prey animals for bears. If a bear starts treating humans as food, that bear will be killed; we have guns and don’t like being challenged for our position on top of the food chain. Bears and humans can coexist if each has a healthy fear of the other.
That bear has had over 10,000 + years of man’s presence on the American continent to develop an instinctual fear of humans and their fire, spears and bangsticks. He’s a slow learner. Enough is enough he had to go.
It’s interesting to read Lewis & Clark’s journals regarding the “grizzled” bears. Long before their first encounter, they write of hearing of them from various local Indians speaking of them with great reverence and fear. The Americans scoff at their fear, since they have guns.
Beginning with Lewis’s first nearly fatal encounter with one, their tone changes dramatically, afterwards matching that of the Indians. Chalk up yet another lesson for the white folks!
Damn it. Now I want to read Undaunted Courage again. (Link goes to the second bear encounter.)
I realize it’s pop-history, rather than academic-history, but it was a fun read. One of the few books I read twice, back to back.
*Four men fired simultaneously, while two soldiers held their rifles in reserve. All four balls hit the mark, two passing through the lungs. The bear rose with a roar and launched and immediate counter-attack, charging with open mouth. The two-man reserve force fired; one ball hit muscle only, but the other broke the bear’s shoulder; this however, only slowed him for an instant.
The men took to flight. The bear pursued down to the river, where two men got away in the canoe while the remainder took to hiding places in the willows, to reload and fire. They hit the bear several more times, but that only let him know where they were hidden. He routed two of the men, who threw away their rifles and pouches and dived into the river, form a perpendicular bank of near twenty feet.
The bear jumped in after them. He was about to reach one of the swimmers when a soldier on the bank finally shot him through the head and killed him. Examination revealed that eight balls had passed through the bear.*
Well, a flintlock muzzle loader would not be my first choice for going up against Mister Grizz but it was all they had.
As far as determining which shots hit where I imagine they figured it out best they could from the post-mortem examination. They did get better at it but it sounds like it was never easy:
The men took to hunting the bears in squadrons. Several crew members would stalk a bear together. Half would take aim and shoot, while the others held fire. A second volley followed, while the first gunners reloaded. They found that only a lucky shot to the brain could reliably kill a grizzly. http://stateparks.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/HTML/articles/2005/lchunting.htm*
Have you ever been really scared? One voice says “RUN!” followed quickly by the voice of reason, “Where? You can’t outrun this thing,” then the reasoner is consulted for an alternative solution which, unless it’s already stocked with contingencies for just this eventuality, will come up with something that usually works in your normal occupation: "Negotiate!’ or “Try the hammer!” or “scold it!” (none of which are likely to persuade the bear to yield) Momentarily, you understand how a blindsided quarterback feels when his tackle misses a block. Then you start to become more sympathetic with a Tootsie Pop because the bear doesn’t lick your head more than twice before getting to your chewy center. Even a lame bear will get you in 6 seconds, and that doesn’t really translate into a particularly joyful 3 extra breaths in this world.
