It is a good idea to watch body language and not get too distracted by the "am I looking it in the eye" thing. Body language can tell you much more than eye color. But, dominant male gorillas are certainly not a wild animal you want to have a staring contest with. If it sometimes applies to bears as well, that doesn't surprise me, but I doubt it is as direct a statement of challenge with bears as it is with dominant male gorillas, whom we are much more closely related to.
They say the same thing of any animal threat including human, so I can't say it is true of bears in particular, whereas dominant male gorillas...

[quote=TAB]It is a good idea to watch body language and not get too distracted by the "am I looking it in the eye" thing. Body language can tell you much more than eye color.quote]

Eye color? Who mentioned anything about eye color? I made the simple point with references that many experts say it's a bad idea to make eye contact with a bear. Since there are no advantages to making eye contact, why take the chance?

What I meant by eye color is that when you look someone in the eye, that's all the info you are really going to get. A constant reminder of eye color is a useless info stream. I do not differentiate in this sense between looking a bear in the eyes and looking a mad pit bull or a hooded mugger in the eyes. I would rather watch the pit bull's ears, back and legs and the mugger's stance and especially hands. The eyes tell you nothing and can only be understood as a challenge to the dominance of the threatening animal. In a more specific sense, the more closely related to the threatening animal I am, I feel the greater the challenge to dominance via eye contact. It's a subconscious thing. Humans most especially, then apes, primates, other mammals, on down the list until eye contact means practically nothing, such as with birds and reptiles. There are many ways to look at it.

We are not really in disagreement as to what to do, only perhaps the why to do it. I think the 'what' is much more important when it comes right down to a do or die situation than is the 'why'. The 'why' is really only for nerds who have nothing better to do than analyze these sorts of things so they can best advise the general public.

Again, I am no bear expert, however I have hiked, camped and lived in bear territory bears for much of my life. I have literally come face to face with many bears in less then 10 feet distance. In almost all cases, once the bear senses you he/she will turn tail and run.

In my experience, those bears that didn't run, I don't recall any incidents where eye to eye contact made any difference(YMMV though). That said, observing the bears' body language and behavior is crucial as at the same time, the bear is also studying your behavior. How you react to the bears' presence will greatly influence if you are about to have a bad day or not...

There are plenty of bear experts out there, keep in mind that many have never personally encountered a bear in the wild closeup and as usual, don't blindly take any one person's "expert" advice as gospel.

That said, Charlie Russell is one of the foremost Grizzly experts in the world and his documentary "Bear Man of Kamchatka" is nothing short of outstanding. The documentry follows Mr. Russell researching and living amongst Grizzlies. After watching this documentary, it will change your views on many aspects of bear behavior.

I've read somewhere that one of the things you should do to convince the bear you are not a prey is talking to it since animal prey doesn't usually do this.

I think that is a very good idea. I also heard that you should never grunt or make bear-like noises when in bear country.

Yeah, but I just never know what to say in situations like that.

On a more serious note, I've always been told to "look big" by opening up and raising one's coat, putting one's backpack on one's shoulders, etc. Supposedly this makes the bear less likely to want to try anything. Honestly, though I'm not sure how practical this advice is. Like who's going to be taking off their coat or backpack when they're face to face with a bear.

I've had two relatively close encounters with bears. On both occasions, I was walking one direction on a trail and the bear was walking the other (coming towards me). Both times the bears took a good look at me and then lumbered off. They weren't afraid but neither were they aggressive. I just sort of stood my ground in both cases (running is generally a bad idea) and waited for their next move. The 2nd encounter I had was in the dark. It was rather unnerving to see a large, shaggy black mass with two golden orbs reflecting the glow of my headlamp.

HJ

I have never had a conversation with a bear! Again depending on a Bear's demeanor/body language and how threatened they feel, usually a loud "Hey Bear" is enough to send them running in a different direction.

One time, DW and I came home from a walk (we lived up in northern rural Canada at the time) only for me to come around the backside of the house and face to face with a big cinnamon phase black bear. No amount of yelling (after retreating to a safe distance) would send that bear away, he just stood there eying me and snapped his teeth a few times. It wasn't until the dog came trotting down the driveway to see what the yelling was about that the bear decided to find a friendlier house to hang out at...

Cinnamon "phase"? I guess I thought that bears, like humans, sort of had their individual colorations, no? There are actually phases that they go through?

HJ

Since it made the news I've been thinking this. Sure, circumstances can make for some erratic behavior. However, nothing about the news coverage has left me settled. I gotta wonder about what actually happened.