- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
H4831
The more of your stuff that I read the better I like you. I wasn't suggesting that you had never stepped off the sidewalk, and no disrespect was intended. I was simply trying to make the point that an individual's particular activity on a given day has much to do with the threat level he operates under.
I've heard the bears have poor eyesight thing before, and I've seen behavior in bears that seems to both support and dispute this premise. Consider a small bear I was pushing along a chain link fence. Ten feet from the end of the fence the dope turns and runs right into it. One could assume he didn't see the fence he was running along, just a few feet away, but I think his eagerness to get away overcame other considerations.
Consider another bear, a big male that was feeding on a seal carcass he had pulled from the river into a stand of willows at the bottom of a rocky outcrop a few summers back. He had his head buried right inside the seal, and his nasal passages would of been full of blood and anyone who has had anything to do with seals will confirm that seals have a thick permeating odor about them. Something made that bear look over his shoulder, a sound perhaps, right at my pal who was standing on top of the outcrop and getting the demise of the unfortunate seal captured on video. Well, when that bear looked over his shoulder and spotted him, there was no sniffing of the air and no hesitation, he walked rapidly through the stand of willows and circled around to where he could easily climb to the top of the outcrop, looking back frequently to pin point his target. It took him less than a minute to cover what I would estimate to be very close to a quarter mile of travel. That was quite a sight, to see this very big bear with his head covered in blood, moving very purposely with the obvious intention of killing my pal. I've often said that a bear attack isn't real until he's broken the 30' range, because up until that point he isn't committed and he can change his mind. I'll consider this guy an exception to the rule. Anyway, the point is that he identified his target by sight and proceeded after him by sight. My pal got his 4 wheeler fired up and got out of there, but the bear by then had picked up his scent and that night found and savaged his Zodiak, deflating 2 chambers. I believe this action demonstrates a capacity for thought and malevolence seldom attributed to wild animals. The bear never showed up at the cabin, if he had I'm sure it would of been lights out for yogi.
An experience I had also suggests that a bear's eyesight might be better than we would think. It was late November when we spotted fresh bear tracks going across the road and out onto a small lake. Fresh bear tracks for me are a temptation too great to resist, so we pulled off the road, bundled up and started off after him. Yes, it was a him, the tracks were too large to be made by a female. It was a clear day and there was a south wind so at no time was the bear going to be able to get our scent as our approach was to the south. We tracked him for perhaps 4 miles and crossed 5 small lakes. At the south end of the 5th lake there was an open stream that flowed into the lake from a very thick tangle of willows, and the tracks followed this open stream into the thicket. Mum never raised foolish children, so rather than go busting into that thicket we circled around an got onto lake #6 and there were no tracks!! That son of a gun knew we were on his trail, which means he had been watching us approach, and decided to lay a trap. We on the other hand had never laid eyes on him, although granted his color was something of an advantage for him, and our dark clothing a disadvantage for us. Never the less, he must of picked us up visually from at least a mile away. Perhaps bears are like people and some have better eyesight than others.
The more of your stuff that I read the better I like you. I wasn't suggesting that you had never stepped off the sidewalk, and no disrespect was intended. I was simply trying to make the point that an individual's particular activity on a given day has much to do with the threat level he operates under.
I've heard the bears have poor eyesight thing before, and I've seen behavior in bears that seems to both support and dispute this premise. Consider a small bear I was pushing along a chain link fence. Ten feet from the end of the fence the dope turns and runs right into it. One could assume he didn't see the fence he was running along, just a few feet away, but I think his eagerness to get away overcame other considerations.
Consider another bear, a big male that was feeding on a seal carcass he had pulled from the river into a stand of willows at the bottom of a rocky outcrop a few summers back. He had his head buried right inside the seal, and his nasal passages would of been full of blood and anyone who has had anything to do with seals will confirm that seals have a thick permeating odor about them. Something made that bear look over his shoulder, a sound perhaps, right at my pal who was standing on top of the outcrop and getting the demise of the unfortunate seal captured on video. Well, when that bear looked over his shoulder and spotted him, there was no sniffing of the air and no hesitation, he walked rapidly through the stand of willows and circled around to where he could easily climb to the top of the outcrop, looking back frequently to pin point his target. It took him less than a minute to cover what I would estimate to be very close to a quarter mile of travel. That was quite a sight, to see this very big bear with his head covered in blood, moving very purposely with the obvious intention of killing my pal. I've often said that a bear attack isn't real until he's broken the 30' range, because up until that point he isn't committed and he can change his mind. I'll consider this guy an exception to the rule. Anyway, the point is that he identified his target by sight and proceeded after him by sight. My pal got his 4 wheeler fired up and got out of there, but the bear by then had picked up his scent and that night found and savaged his Zodiak, deflating 2 chambers. I believe this action demonstrates a capacity for thought and malevolence seldom attributed to wild animals. The bear never showed up at the cabin, if he had I'm sure it would of been lights out for yogi.
An experience I had also suggests that a bear's eyesight might be better than we would think. It was late November when we spotted fresh bear tracks going across the road and out onto a small lake. Fresh bear tracks for me are a temptation too great to resist, so we pulled off the road, bundled up and started off after him. Yes, it was a him, the tracks were too large to be made by a female. It was a clear day and there was a south wind so at no time was the bear going to be able to get our scent as our approach was to the south. We tracked him for perhaps 4 miles and crossed 5 small lakes. At the south end of the 5th lake there was an open stream that flowed into the lake from a very thick tangle of willows, and the tracks followed this open stream into the thicket. Mum never raised foolish children, so rather than go busting into that thicket we circled around an got onto lake #6 and there were no tracks!! That son of a gun knew we were on his trail, which means he had been watching us approach, and decided to lay a trap. We on the other hand had never laid eyes on him, although granted his color was something of an advantage for him, and our dark clothing a disadvantage for us. Never the less, he must of picked us up visually from at least a mile away. Perhaps bears are like people and some have better eyesight than others.
) and could take a shorter route to get there. 
(I'm kidding)
