Originally Posted By: Teslinhiker
Originally Posted By: BruceZed
If this Group of 5 had "Stayed Together" this encounter would not have made the news. I have never found a Reliable Encounter with a Group of less than 3 that has had lead to a fatal bear encounter (Either Black or Grizzly), i.e. Travel in a Group of 4 or More and Deaths Caused by a Bears Go to Zero. Even a group of 2 cuts your chances of a deadly encounter down greatly.

Remember that if a group either starts an encounter spread apart or breaks up as in this encounter then the Bear Encounter is 1-on-1.
Although this Grizzly Bear attack did not kill anyone, it resulted into 2 serious injuries that could of easily been life ending. It should be noted that this was a group of 7 that was attacked and really does away with the long held believe that a large groups may never be subject to a bear attack.
Actually, the NOLS bear attack probably doesn't disprove the belief that large groups probably won't be attacked. Bruce Zed's last statement is key.

A detailed analysis by NOLS after the event indicated that the students were walking up a creek, spread out, in single file. The first student had just rounded a rocky outcrop when he first saw the bear. At the time the bear hit the first student, it likely was not aware that there were more behind him. The bear probably initially only saw one student.

See New report details 2011 Alaska grizzly bear attack on outdoors school students (Part 1) , and How could NOLS students have avoided bear attack? (Part 2)
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