"Been to Alaska a couple of times, everyone needs to go there once."

that includes me .. haven't been but it's on my bucket list. I plan on having a great time, and I'm not aiming at making any bears mad.

Pete2

I would absolutely love to get up to Alaska! It would rock to camp, hike and fish there for a month.

you know ... based on this thread I went back and took a look at the news. You guys are right - there have been a LOT of bear attacks in 2013. Wonder what is going on???

Generally I dismiss the whole "bear attack" thing because I'm lucky and the only bears that live in my area are black bears. They are usually on the timid side. But when I checked the news stories I was amazed to discover that several of the incidents have been caused by regular black bears. And furthermore, it doesn't look as though some of the victims did anything particularly wrong. The bears just attacked - that's it.

Not sure what's going on here. Normally I might say that the "problem" is due to more people venturing in the wilderness. But in my neck of the woods ... it's the total opposite. I was up in the High Sierras last week myself - and I have never seen as few people in the campgrounds as I saw last week. I pretty much had the whole place to myself, and in some areas the local "economy" is actually shutting down due to no customers to buy things. The modern generation is just not going out there.

so I wonder what's going on??

Pete2

"Random variation" may be what's going on, at least if your reference is to the article reporting seven bear incidents. On the other hand, a mad scientist in Scotland (AFLM's evil cousin) may splicing genes from killer cobras into the black bear genome, and teleporting them to North American wilderness areas - this being first steps in his plan for world domination - simply unbearable!(Where's James Bond when you need him?)

The correct explanation probably lies somewhere between these two extremes.

Unfortunately, the bear did not survive in this one, but it demonstrates the application of current policies....Please discuss


Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area (MT,WY)
Aggressive Black Bear Destroyed

On August 9th, a 120-pound female black bear was killed at Black Canyon Campground in a joint operation by rangers and Montana Fish and Wildlife officers.

Over the last three years, this black bear had gotten into unsecured food and coolers brought in by day users and campers at this popular campground on Bighorn Lake and recently displayed aggressive behavior toward people. Black Canyon has been closed to the public at various times during past years due to this bear and was just recently closed to the public on July 26th. Bear activity in the area had been monitored by rangers since this most recent closure.

While monitoring the closed area, this same bear reappeared. A ranger shot a rubber slug deterrent round at the bear, hitting it front and center; although the bear ran into some brush, it came back out five minutes later. The ranger then shot a second rubber slug deterrent round at the bear, hitting it in the back. The bear again ran away, but returned within fifteen minutes.

A decision was made by park management in conjunction with the park’s standard operating procedures and step-up plan that the bear would need to be killed due to its habituation to humans and human food and its lack of significant response to the deterrent rounds fired by the rangers.

During an investigation of this latest occurrence, a 22-year-old woman was cited for feeding wildlife after she admitted to throwing a hotdog to the bear prior to the area closure. Other food storage violations are being investigated.
[Submitted by Dale Kissner, Supervisory Park Ranger]

The news release should be titled "Stupid Humans employ Utterly Imbecilic Behaviour to Guarantee a Bear's Untimely Death."

A fed bear is a dead bear.

Like it or not, the rangers acted correctly. The bear had to be destroyed. A bear never, ever forgets a food source and will pursue it and defend it once habituated.

As for the stupid humans, there's a temptation to smear them in sardine oil and feathers and drop them off ten miles from town. Wouldn't do it, of course, but it's cathartic to contemplate.

well that's one possibility. maybe some of these animals did have previous human contact - they were fed by tourists or locals.

Pete2

The statement hikermor posted to says the bear was getting access to unsecured human food over a three year period. So there was a long parade of human dumbness, not just a one-time event. Rangers and wildlife officers don't have many options left after all that.

A True Story:
Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is an awesome place to visit, either for hunting, fishing,or just getting out in the wilderness. Bear hunting is strictly regulated, there is a lottery for drawing a bear permit. There are public use cabins available. There is lots of information in those cabins (posters, pamphlets, etc) about proper behaviour in bear country.

Some years back friends of mine flew in to one of the cabins on a lake to fish the Silver Salmon run in the outlet stream of the lake. The entire time they were there they had trouble with a big brown bear hanging around the cabin. It got scary using the outhouse at night. These cabins all have a log book and most visitors choose to leave a note about their stay at the cabin. In the log book, my friends noticed that an ealier party from out of state (they were from California as I recall) had left a note about how they were cleaning their fish on the beach in front of the cabin, and how much fun it was to watch the bear come by to enjoy his "evening snack".

A couple of years later, another buddy and I were using that same cabin, and remembered the story our friend had told us. So naturally we looked back through the book. From the time of the out of staters writing about feeding the bears, every single party that wrote in the log book said something about scary bear encounters. That is until a bunch of guys were there on a deer hunt. One of the deer hunters tangled with a bear about a mile from the cabin and was seriously injured. The bear was killed. After that there wasn't a single note about problems with bears arond that cabin. We had no issures during our visit.

Of course we can't know for sure that the bear they were feeding was the one that mauled the guy, but the coincidence is rather interesting. People feed a bear near a cabin, over the next two seasons everyone has bear trouble at that cabin, a bear seriously injures a hunter in the area and is shot, no more bear problems at that cabin.

The sad thing is that you might be careless with food and trash and get away with it. But if your stupidity conditions a bear to associate people with food, sooner or later someone will kill that bear. And quite possibly a person will be seriously injured.

Maybe your friends should've used bear spray on the bear. Then the bear would've run off and left everyone alone after that, and it would still be alive and the one deer hunter would not have gotten hurt.