Bears are simply unpredictable. One woman (a park ranger or something, I think) walked around the curve of a trail and came face to face with a black bear. They stopped and looked at each other, the woman frozen in place (she knew not to run). The bear walked up to her on all fours, sniffed her hand, and walked away.

I agree that most bear attacks are probably caused by surprising a bear, getting between bear and cubs or between a bear and its kill.

And it depends on how recently it ate, and how much. In spring, just out of hibernation, and they haven't eaten for a few months, all bets are off. They tend to be cranky then.

Sue

I agree with Susan.

When I lived up north in a very small rural community, we would often find bears right in our backyard and in the forest and fields close by. Most times the bear would turn tail and run once they caught our scent.

Other times the bear would come in closer for a closer look and sniff then not pay attention to us at all and continue about it's business.

The odd occasion, a bear would be aggressive and start swinging it's head and with ears back, advance towards us. These are the bears to really watch for...they feel threatened and you need to be very careful to stay calm and give the bear as much room as possible...this also applies for any other types of bear encounter such as I wrote about above.

Picking "shot" huckleberries out on the Olympic Peninsula in the fall was always a bit touchy. You could here them, but you couldn't see them, and you had to whistle or something so they wouldn't come in too close. Inside of 50 yards dad would start throwing things at them and they would generally turn and evade, but once in a while we would have to grab our buckets and run for the VW bus.

You thought dogs was funny when they get a mouth full of peanut butter, you should see ole blackie when his chops get loaded up. First time I ever seen peanut butter foam, heh heh heh...pretty good way to get a bear to stop following you around for a while, he gets preoccupied with clearing his snout out. Mix a goodly dollup of honey in with the jar, and they'll find it a lot more irresistable than the taste of your hide.

Yep, just a few months ago in Utah, that young child was surgically removed from his tent and partially eaten a few hundred feet from the tent by a black bear.

In the Alaska grizzly killing of the couple sleeping in their tent on the banks of a river a year or so ago...someone in the vicinity after the killings was stalked by the same bear. The person was in a boat and the bear just kept following along the bank waiting for a way to get at them. Those stories are scary.

I don't know the details of either case but I have a suspicion, especially with the black bear example you mentioned, it has something to do with FOOD. Properly storing food will dramatically lower your chances of encountering a bear.

IIRC, seems to me a dbl barrel 12 ga wired for 110 with a light bulb strapped to the muzzle is a pretty effective bear stopper, or at least deterrant. Gotta make sure you either shoot em in the head or the butt, though. Never seen a bear run screaming into the night like that before.

Hummm, where have I seen that before?????

This is a good article on the attack.

Thanks for the link Sherpadog. In the article they mention bears can smell food for miles and then say they're not sure what caused the attack. Could be wrong but my guess is the boy had food on him and the bear was after it. They'll even go for an empty pack of M&M's (story I read about in Backpacker). Terrible for the family, sucks for the bear.