While hiking, he saw a mama bear and her cubs at a safe distance. They saw him and ran off into the woods. Orr figured he was safe, but suddenly mama reappeared at full charge. He had just enough time to fire off his bear spray before she knocked him down and began tearing him to pieces. She eventually lost interest, and a badly wounded Orr headed back to his truck. But on the way, she attacked again. At one point during the class, Adam got bored and wandered off about 30 yards.
Predators have evolved to blend into their surroundings. Sitting down behind a small pine tree, the enormous bear was utterly invisible to us at that distance. Forrest explained that grizzlies can charge at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, and unlike humans, who take several strides to accelerate, the bears can hit their top speed on their first bound.
Then they should immediately leave the area. Every grizzly is dangerous. During the classroom portion, Forrest talked about the various behaviors that can result in an attack and the different tactics you can apply to avoiding each. Surprise: The most common cause of bear attacks. You inadvertently find yourself in close proximity to a bear, which is surprised by your presence and attacks in self-defense.
Protecting Cubs: A mama bear will aggressively defend her cubs against anything she perceives is a threat. Guarding Food: A bear consuming a dead animal will want to keep away anything it perceives as competition. Seeking Food: A curious bear is attracted by food smells in your camp or on your person and approaches to find a meal.
Rumor has it that some have even learned to associate the sound of a gunshot with the availability of a fresh meal. Predation: Rarely, a young and inexperienced or injured grizzly may identify a human as prey.
A bear that is seeking food may have lost its fear of humans and could linger in a campsite. The very rare predatory bear may stalk and try to kill you. The methods for avoiding each type of encounter also differ. Making noise will help avoid surprising a bear and may warn off a sow with cubs.
Dogs may help alert a bear to your presence but could draw an attack from a defensive mother or a bear guarding food. A bear seeking food may be deterred by dogs and loud noises. A predatory bear could be attracted to dogs, noise, or just your smell. MYTH: If you can, you should climb to escape from a grizzly bear. While its long claws make climbing more difficult for a grizzly than for a black bear, a grizzly can get to you in a tree — it will more likely, however, be able to reach you before you reach the tree.
MYTH: The best defense against a bear is a gun. TRUTH: Research has shown that a mortally wounded bear usually lives long enough to injure seriously its attacker. People using guns against bears are more often attacked and more severely injured than those using bear spray to defend themselves and deter the bear.
Bear spray is also nontoxic and will not permanently harm either the bear or the person exposed to it. Bears often follow the same routes as people, along established trails, in late evening or early morning. Fresh bear tracks are most often seen on trails in the morning. Bear scat is often quite dark in color, with partially digested vegetation, insects, and hair visible.
While grizzly scat is about 2 inches or so in diameter, it is not always possible to distinguish black bear from grizzly scat by size. There is a chance — depending on where you are — that you might come across a creature say, a grizzly bear that could, if provoked, cause you serious bodily harm or even kill you. Though there are a number of factors that lead to such events, Mother Nature Network points out that the increased number of human-bear conflicts can be linked to environmental degradation , such as habitat loss, increasing populations, food shortages, and climate change.
The best way for you to survive a bear attack, of course, is to avoid one entirely. When exploring, take extra steps to guard your food — such as by hanging a bear bag to avoid curious animals — and carry a bear deterrent with you, such as bear spray. Brown bears are the most widespread species of bears in the world in terms of continental reach. Most bear attacks occur during grizzly-human interactions and usually involve a mother bear protecting her cubs. Brown bear attacks tend to be at their highest between the months of May and June, when mothers are raising their young after a long hibernation.
Black bears have a great sense of smelling and hearing, which makes them very curious creatures. Though their curiosity may spark encounters, black bear attacks are very rare because they tend to be less aggressive than brown bears. A bear is more likely to retreat if it sees or smells several people walking toward it than if a single person approaches.
Of the people injured by bears in Yellowstone National Park since , 91 percent were hiking alone or with one other person. If dogs are allowed in the area where you'll be, it's generally a good idea to bring them, since the canines often scare away bears.
However, this approach can backfire: If a dog is ahead of its owner and then runs into a bear, the bear may chase it, which is not only dangerous to the dog but could endanger humans if the dog runs back to its owner. If you see fresh scat, for instance, a bear has recently passed by. Think through, 'How am I going to react? Throwing things, standing tall, and yelling will drive away most black bears—although that strategy isn't foolproof.
If you run into a grizzly, your approach should be the opposite: Backing away slowly and getting away from the situation without provoking the animal, he says. That's especially true with female grizzly bears with cubs, which can be particularly dangerous.
When threatened, female grizzlies will often stand up, slap the ground, and make blowing sounds. However, "that means it's nervous; it's not aggressive," he says. In Smith and Herrero's analysis of bear attacks in Alaska, the vast majority of incidents in which bears charged occurred when people and bears confronted each other at close range, within ten yards nine meters or less. In more than 50 percent of those situations, the person was not physically hurt.
Of the cases in which the bears injured the person, 36 percent of injuries were to legs and feet, 18 percent to the back, 18 percent to arms, and 9 percent to head and neck. Keep watching the animal as you walk away, and some experts suggest speaking out loud in a calm voice. If it's a black bear, try to fight back. If that strategy doesn't work, lay on your stomach protecting your vital organs , clasp your hands on the back of your neck, and pull up your knees.
At this point, the bear may give up and leave. If it's a grizzly, do not try to defend yourself. Since , Yellowstone National Park has tracked bear encounters and found that those who play dead when attacked by a bear during a surprise encounter only got minor injuries 75 percent of the time. Those who fought back, on the other hand, suffered severe injuries 80 percent of the time.
The analysis by Smith and Herrero also revealed that things don't always end well for the bear: In physical run-ins with people, bears died 34 percent of the time from injury incurred during the incident or from subsequent management actions.
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