MurrayM
Guru
Attacks coming in multiple stages as psneeld points out is the most important thing to be taken away from this whole thread.
Here's my take, which isn't an expert opinion, just what I've cobbled together through experience and being omnivorous in gleaning details from other sources.
Every bear has a radius of personal space where they don't feel threatened. This varies with time of year, food availability, position in local bear society, cubs, health, and age among other reasons. There is also a difference between a wild bear and one 'spoiled' by learning that humans can be a source of food like garbage near homes or camp.
Bears get to do the choosing of where that personal boundary is, like the bear which sat down near the fellow at Brooks Falls. The video would have ended very differently had the dude strolled over to a bear and sat down beside it, or if Rusty's bear viewing guide had beached their dinghy and strolled up to the mother with cubs.
The reason I make noise in the bush is so that the bear hears me coming in enough time to make some calculated decisions, like:
Can I move away in time?
Can I get my cubs away in a relaxed, controlled manner?
If the bear decides it can't do those things, I want it to come out to the edge of it's safety boundary and challenge me. Like the mother that treed its cubs and then treed the forestry tech and I (because we weren't making noise and she didn't have time to scoot them out of there) she had her cubs safe and she was in control of the situation.
If it's a grizzly on a moose kill, I want it to come crashing through the bush and then stop on its boundary line and challenge me. I don't want to get so close that it thinks I'm trying to muscle in on its kill, like the hikers 20 miles out of Ketchikan probably did.
I never want to get close enough for the coughing, roaring, snapping jaws, foaming at the mouth displays, or even the stiff forelegs 'Tough Guy' walk. That's a failure even as the situation starts.
Here's my take, which isn't an expert opinion, just what I've cobbled together through experience and being omnivorous in gleaning details from other sources.
Every bear has a radius of personal space where they don't feel threatened. This varies with time of year, food availability, position in local bear society, cubs, health, and age among other reasons. There is also a difference between a wild bear and one 'spoiled' by learning that humans can be a source of food like garbage near homes or camp.
Bears get to do the choosing of where that personal boundary is, like the bear which sat down near the fellow at Brooks Falls. The video would have ended very differently had the dude strolled over to a bear and sat down beside it, or if Rusty's bear viewing guide had beached their dinghy and strolled up to the mother with cubs.
The reason I make noise in the bush is so that the bear hears me coming in enough time to make some calculated decisions, like:
Can I move away in time?
Can I get my cubs away in a relaxed, controlled manner?
If the bear decides it can't do those things, I want it to come out to the edge of it's safety boundary and challenge me. Like the mother that treed its cubs and then treed the forestry tech and I (because we weren't making noise and she didn't have time to scoot them out of there) she had her cubs safe and she was in control of the situation.
If it's a grizzly on a moose kill, I want it to come crashing through the bush and then stop on its boundary line and challenge me. I don't want to get so close that it thinks I'm trying to muscle in on its kill, like the hikers 20 miles out of Ketchikan probably did.
I never want to get close enough for the coughing, roaring, snapping jaws, foaming at the mouth displays, or even the stiff forelegs 'Tough Guy' walk. That's a failure even as the situation starts.
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