Interesting take on response time. (Bear/human defence)

Great points Jethunter and others, it's not the 10 bears you meet in the woods that don't harm you that you carry a firearm for. It's the one that for whatever reason decides the forest would be better without you, that's what we are talking about here. Sometimes bears attack for reasons that aren't under a person's control, if a deer had walked by instead the bear would've attacked it.

IMHO, a 12 gauge pump gun loaded to the gills with slugs and or buckshot is your best bet to stop a bear. With slugs you get a large, heavy projectile that will more than likely expend all its energy inside the animal instead of passing through and 'wasting' some of that energy on the other side of the animal. Not to mention the massive amount of muzzle energy slugs have. Buckshot of course has multiple projectiles and therefore has a higher potential for hits, lots of carnage etc. Pump actions are far less likely to jam than a semi-auto, and it has a good size magazine. Again, just my thinking on it. When I walk in the bear woods, I carry an 870 12 gauge with slugs or a .45-70 with heavy bullets. Makes me feel better!
 
jethunter said:
So what you're saying is that every bear attacxk in every circumstance is 100% preventable? What happens when you're in thick cover and a bear that has been conditioned by human contact decides you are food and takes a run at you without giving you any warning. He just appears, already going full throttle? Is this preventable? Should one walk with rifle at full ready condition at all times, every time?

People can definitely improve their odds by using their heads and paying attention, but to say that every bear attack is preventable may not be completely accurate. Wrong place - wrong time - wrong bear, you can do everything right and still get et by a bar.
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I'm not saying that every bear attack is 100% preventable. I am saying that there is a reason for every bear attack, and the more we learn from those incidents, the safer we become. As an example, I'll describe an incident we experienced a few years ago, that could have gone very badly.

My wife and I were walking along the buggy trail, perhaps a quarter mile off the coast. The tide was out and I suggested we cross the tidal flats to cut off some distance to the tower. "I don't like going through the willows," she said. A little annoyed I said, "The willows stretch two miles all the way back to the esker, what are the chances there'll be a bear right where we cut through?" As it turned out, 100%.

Had that bear taken offence with our presence, things could have gone badly, but our luck held. Had there been an attack, the reason would have been that we encroached upon the bear's personal space. It didn't matter to the bear that we didn't know he was there. So its not a matter of blame, but it would have been the reason for an attack to occur. Had the bear's life experience taught him to attack anything that encroached upon his personal space, we'd have been in trouble. But that doesn't mean I won't enter thick cover if I can cut a mile off a long trek; that's very different than intentionally entering a stand of willows that I know contains a bear. Bears are where you find them, and most of the time, what happens next, is up to them.

When you walk with a rifle at full ready depends upon your personal situation, and upon the environment you're in. If I'm in thick cover, the rifle is in my hands, if I'm in the open its slung. If the rifle is always in my hands I'm fatigued more quickly, and not as aware as I should be, in other words I'm unarmed. Whenever I enter thick cover I'm alert to the possibility of a bear encounter. In open country, I frequently glass ahead to watch for bears.

Human habituated bears are a fact of life, perhaps more so here than in other places and is yet another reason why problems can occur. Anytime that a bear is rewarded by interaction with people, the stage is set for bad things to happen. If I'm changing a tire on the side of the road in the dark, I sure don't want this guy to be around . . .



But habituation can be even more subtle than a bear being fed. In the spring, female polar bears, with their cubs, head out onto Hudson Bay, from their inland denning sites, to go shopping for seal meat. We were out at our cabin, the sleigh was loaded, and I just fired up our snow machine, ready to head home after our weekend adventure. Suddenly my wife starts pounding on my back and the word bear seemed to enter my consciousness. A female with her cub in tow were walking across the lake, along our snowmobile trail, and sure enough, instead of continuing on in a straight line towards the barrens, she followed it around the turn towards the cabin, and us. I scared her off ith a couple of shots, live fire doesn't always work, but it did this time. This was the first time I realized that with all the eco-tourism going on up here, and folks wanting to photograph cubs as they emerge from their dens, that snowmobile trials are so numerous that the bears are beginning to depend on them to get around. We walk lots of miles along snowmobile trials, so bears habituated to these trails are one more thing to be aware of, particularly in the spring, when bear encounters aren't normally expected.



 
skokie said:
That's mostly true for non-predatory attacks, but when the attack is motivated by hunger it's a different story. Black Bears aren't generally predatory in Ontario, but as their population increases, their food supply decreases and so they turn to hunting more than foraging. Of the attacks I've read about recently, most of them seem more or less unprovoked. Then there's the scenario of a sow protecting her cubs. I've been in that situation twice and not had any trouble as I was far enough away that she didn't consider me a threat. Bears are ghostly in the woods, you can't always give them their space if you don't see or hear them until you're 15 feet away.
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thats where the 99/100 comes in. Thanks Toronto boy, how's the big city with all them bears around? I have to literally live with them. Believe me I know there ghostly, fu*ckers get into my garbage all the time. Glanced over back of the couch the other day to look out the widow was eye to eye with a small one on my deck. My last bacon wrapped Pam can didn't deter ####. In all my years I've never had a sow protect anything other than teeing them and turning tail herself. Not saying it won't happen but you need to be doing some things wrong to get into any trouble, as other have said a victims a victim for a reason.
 
Funny bear story. A few years back a young bear was forced out of it's winter den early for whatever reason. Unbeknownst to us it set up shop under the front deck. Harley was a young pup and each time he went out he went nuts. Well he should have as there was a bear sleeping on the shelf about 18 inches under the deck. I gave him a hard time of course. The next morning the same routine. The boss says better check it out. I have to crawl the last part and I stick my nose around the last corner and my nose is three inches from his. I left a lot quicker than I arrived. I put a speaker next to the window, put it on Rock 101, 15 minutes later the little guy stumbled off. I live and walk in bear country every day, never without my dog ( I realize this is not plausible for most hunting situations). My experience tells me this; if you do not spook them no problem. The predatory bear situation is unique and a very long shot ( not so much in Boomer's country) but it does happen. That poor girl at Suncor. Gary Shelton's books predict this type of behaviour and he went to great lengths to explain this type of behaviour while explaining the Liard River hot springs incident. The bear has to die in that situation. The single mindedness of the behaviour is something that I do not understand.
 
j_06 said:
thats where the 99/100 comes in. Thanks Toronto boy, how's the big city with all them bears around? I have to literally live with them. Believe me I know there ghostly, fu*ckers get into my garbage all the time. Glanced over back of the couch the other day to look out the widow was eye to eye with a small one on my deck. My last bacon wrapped Pam can didn't deter ####. In all my years I've never had a sow protect anything other than teeing them and turning tail herself. Not saying it won't happen but you need to be doing some things wrong to get into any trouble, as other have said a victims a victim for a reason.
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I'm from the bush in Muskoka, grew up around bears and other wildlife constantly. I live in Toronto now for work, hence the " unfortunately " in my location. I still spend considerable time back home at our family house in the bush. It's also where I do most of my hunting. We can't grill a burger without attracting a black bear up there. I've met bears a bunch of times, only once did I almost have to put one down, fortunately my brother got out of the tent in time to use the bear banger in his shotgun instead of the .45-70 in my rifle. That Bear woke me up sniffing my head through the wall of the tent that was only 25 feet from the house.
 
Boomer said:
I'm not saying that every bear attack is 100% preventable. I am saying that there is a reason for every bear attack, and the more we learn from those incidents, the safer we become. As an example, I'll describe an incident we experienced a few years ago, that could have gone very badly.

My wife and I were walking along the buggy trail, perhaps a quarter mile off the coast. The tide was out and I suggested we cross the tidal flats to cut off some distance to the tower. "I don't like going through the willows," she said. A little annoyed I said, "The willows stretch two miles all the way back to the esker, what are the chances there'll be a bear right where we cut through?" As it turned out, 100%.

Had that bear taken offence with our presence, things could have gone badly, but our luck held. Had there been an attack, the reason would have been that we encroached upon the bear's personal space. It didn't matter to the bear that we didn't know he was there. So its not a matter of blame, but it would have been the reason for an attack to occur. Had the bear's life experience taught him to attack anything that encroached upon his personal space, we'd have been in trouble. But that doesn't mean I won't enter thick cover if I can cut a mile off a long trek; that's very different than intentionally entering a stand of willows that I know contains a bear. Bears are where you find them, and most of the time, what happens next, is up to them.

When you walk with a rifle at full ready depends upon your personal situation, and upon the environment you're in. If I'm in thick cover, the rifle is in my hands, if I'm in the open its slung. If the rifle is always in my hands I'm fatigued more quickly, and not as aware as I should be, in other words I'm unarmed. Whenever I enter thick cover I'm alert to the possibility of a bear encounter. In open country, I frequently glass ahead to watch for bears.

Human habituated bears are a fact of life, perhaps more so here than in other places and is yet another reason why problems can occur. Anytime that a bear is rewarded by interaction with people, the stage is set for bad things to happen. If I'm changing a tire on the side of the road in the dark, I sure don't want this guy to be around . . .



But habituation can be even more subtle than a bear being fed. In the spring, female polar bears, with their cubs, head out onto Hudson Bay, from their inland denning sites, to go shopping for seal meat. We were out at our cabin, the sleigh was loaded, and I just fired up our snow machine, ready to head home after our weekend adventure. Suddenly my wife starts pounding on my back and the word bear seemed to enter my consciousness. A female with her cub in tow were walking across the lake, along our snowmobile trail, and sure enough, instead of continuing on in a straight line towards the barrens, she followed it around the turn towards the cabin, and us. I scared her off ith a couple of shots, live fire doesn't always work, but it did this time. This was the first time I realized that with all the eco-tourism going on up here, and folks wanting to photograph cubs as they emerge from their dens, that snowmobile trials are so numerous that the bears are beginning to depend on them to get around. We walk lots of miles along snowmobile trials, so bears habituated to these trails are one more thing to be aware of, particularly in the spring, when bear encounters aren't normally expected.



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Agreed. I expect most people would agree there is a reason for every bear attack. Personally I think that bears are just like people in that they have different personalities and are just as unpredictable as humans. When you think you have them all figured out you run into the one that doesn't fit the pattern you have become accustomed to.

Most encounters are not predatory, but if a bear wants to hunt you there are circumstances where he has the advantage. Bears are faster than we are, and have better developed senses. We have guns and usually that's a good enough advantage, but sometimes conditions will favour the bear regardless of how well prepared we may be.

There was an article in OL mag decades back about a native hunter that was attacked from behind and killed by a grizzly. They determined from tracks in the snow that the bear had stalked him for a while before attacking. If I remember correctly this happened in northern BC somewhere. Hunter never had a chance and likely no clue that there was a bear that close, he was still wearing his mitts when they found the remains, and rifle had a round chambered but the safety was still on. The deceased was an expert hunter that had lived and travelled alone in bear country for most of his life, and yet that bear got him. There's always a chance that you run into that bear. Nothing is guaranteed.
 
j_06 said:
Just shows you bears 99/100 times don't care or don't want to be around you. Should have made you more comfortable now knowing you were 50 ft from a big bad bear and nothing came of it. Buy a bear tag!
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I have heard the 99/100 thought before as well. Unfortunately bears dont come with numbers, you have no idea if its aggressive or not.

This is also one of the reasons that the "one" rifle threads have me at odds with people who suggest 308, or 270....standard deer calibers. Carry the most caliber you can shoot accurately, a 338 win mag isnt a cannon. It will not ruin any more meat on a ungulate with proper bullet placement. Buggling Elk are distracted, Grizzly understand and get buggled in for a chance at Elk meat. One of the reasons the afore mentioned 338 wm is popular with Elk hunters.
 
i find Bears extremely curious I run into them quit often well fly fishing I think it's the sound of the rod and fly line wiping in the air or the splashing in the water who knows for sheer
Most fly fisherman I know pack a short shotgun
I'm more of a rifle guy and most times prefer a good old 30-06 ore 45-70
Well fishing I like a short shotgun wading in the rivers
Varry rarely am I startled by a bear i can smell them long befor I can see them
In the fall I go pick Pine mushrooms out the cranberry junction / Nass river in northern BC sum patches it's the norm to run into two or three Grizly a day other patches it black bears but thers always a bear around.
I always pack a rifle or shotgun I don't think I realy need one but at the same time it is a Nice feeling knowing I'm armed

sum picker get pretty funny about ther mushroom patches and There the biggest threat out ther not bears
 
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nowarningshot said:
I have heard the 99/100 thought before as well. Unfortunately bears dont come with numbers, you have no idea if its aggressive or not.

This is also one of the reasons that the "one" rifle threads have me at odds with people who suggest 308, or 270....standard deer calibers. Carry the most caliber you can shoot accurately, a 338 win mag isnt a cannon. It will not ruin any more meat on a ungulate with proper bullet placement. Buggling Elk are distracted, Grizzly understand and get buggled in for a chance at Elk meat. One of the reasons the afore mentioned 338 wm is popular with Elk hunters.
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read my following comment as well, I understand they don't come with numbers, like I said give them the respect they deserve and you'll be fine. Funny, look at locations of the people in here worried about a ####in bear in the woods. I'm not gonna tell you how to hail a cab or catch the skytrain. No one said they're harmless Disney creatures, but man you big city guys sure worry a lot. If I thought there wasn't a chance of being attacked why would I be worried about respecting them and taking nessesary precautions, I'm just not a chicken sh!t worried about a bear behind every ducking bush. Grow a pair people.
 
j_06 said:
read my following comment as well, I understand they don't come with numbers, like I said give them the respect they deserve and you'll be fine. Funny, look at locations of the people in here worried about a ####in bear in the woods. I'm not gonna tell you how to hail a cab or catch the skytrain. No one said they're harmless Disney creatures, but man you big city guys sure worry a lot. If I thought there wasn't a chance of being attacked why would I be worried about respecting them and taking nessesary precautions, I'm just not a chicken sh!t worried about a bear behind every ducking bush. Grow a pair people.
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Yer funny. People wanting to protect themselves from possible attack by some of the largest predators in the Canadian woods apparently suffer from testicular non-existance? If anyone should worried about bear protection it is the guys who have lived in the city or suburbs most of their life and only spend a short time in the woods during hunting seasons etc. They are the ones who are less likely to act properly during such an encounter and are completely within their rights to protect themselves. People have been arming themselves when they walk into the woods since the dawn of time, it's frankly hilarious that you think wanting to be prepared is a sign of cowardice. As somebody who grew up in the woods I have an idea of how to deal with them, but I've had people completely freeze up when they see one because they don't have the experience or training to properly handle the situation. As you yourself said bears are ghostly in the woods, you can't always predict there location or reaction. I have met bears in close quarters (15' or so) with just a big knife, and nothing bad happened, but its a hell of a lot more fun if your toting a firearm. I think it's completely legitimate to plan for the worst case scenario and if it doesn't go that way, no harm no foul.
 
Very few times I've been confronted by a black bear. Most times, if you see them at all, it's the south end of one going north.
Where I have had issues, is with cubs, and, once when I smelled something terrible (dead). Never saw it, but I figure I had stumbled on a kill. I couldn't see the bear in the dense bush, but he/she could see me, as i could hear the bear moving about, huffing and popping jaws at me. Sometimes a retreat is the best option, particularly when bears are out of season, and you're unarmed. It was one of those times when a big bore handgun would have been comforting.

Cubs, mamma sends them up a tree, and most times is right there close by. Watch your back if she's not! I put three cubs up a tree near my cottage, and mom was no where in sight. Again I was unarmed. Bears are big animals, but amazingly silent and hard to see in the bush. It was another case of retreat for me.
 
j_06 said:
read my following comment as well, I understand they don't come with numbers, like I said give them the respect they deserve and you'll be fine. Funny, look at locations of the people in here worried about a ####in bear in the woods. I'm not gonna tell you how to hail a cab or catch the skytrain. No one said they're harmless Disney creatures, but man you big city guys sure worry a lot. If I thought there wasn't a chance of being attacked why would I be worried about respecting them and taking nessesary precautions, I'm just not a chicken sh!t worried about a bear behind every ducking bush. Grow a pair people.
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Well there Daniel Boone, thanks for the advice for all us pilgrims. Just because i am ....was ....stuck here......doesnt mean i have always been here. Were you under the impression i was calling out your comment and somehow needed to go on personal attack mode. What of my post calls you out? Its just a comment on preparedness in the bush, nothing to do with you. Now i could make a comment about the hole you live in, having lived there three times, but what would be the point......Oh ya i degress....your post had no point either.

No worries about a pair here, try growing a thicker skin. Maybe get out of town more, the smell gets people grumpy there.
 
H4831 said:
With all these black bear attacks I'm surprised our papers aren't full of stories of bears killing people. Like two or three years ago there were stories about a man in Quebec who was killed by a bear. In an attempt to point out how dangerous bears are, one newspaper article pointed out that this was the second person killed by a bear in Quebec in the last twenty years!
I don't think there has been a person killed by a black bear in BC for the last, maybe three years. At that time a woman tree planter, I think it was, was killed by a black bear, in what was described as a predatory attack, where the bear stalks the person, taking its time, to make sure it is safe for the bear to have a feast.
And, in spite of what you read on the inter-net, black bears do not defend their cubs. Two different times I have encountered a sow black with once two and the other time three cubs. In both cases I made a charge at the group and in both cases the cubs ran up a tree and the sow stood back a safe distance and just watched.
I once knew a family that lived in the bush on a homestead. The dad told me that every fall for twenty years he had shot a spring black bear cub, for the fat on it. He said there was never once that he had to shoot the mother bear! He said, "Oh, they would stomp around and snap their teeth, but I just paid no attention to them, and they never even came close to attacking."
I have never, ever, heard or read of even one genuine case of a black bear that was wounded, attacking a person. When a bear is wounded with a hit from a bullet, it takes off in the direction it is pointed, when it was hit. If this direction is somewhat in the direction of the shooter, they will claim to high heaven that the bear was attacking, but in reality, the bear didn't know where the shot came from and were just trying to get away.
I once stood up on a pile of waste material from a logging operation, about six feet above the ground. I saw a bear, took an off hand shot at it and made a poor hit. The bear made a mad dash in my direction and crawled into the brush I was standing on! I got down moved some brush to see the bear, then finished it off.
So, if anyone can send me a link to a genuine news media event of a wounded black bear attacking the shooter, I will eat crow, with pie in my face!
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The only time I have ever been bluff charged by any bear was a sow black bear with cubs in the spring time. Was a thoughtless 18 year old at the time and thought I'd do my sister a favor and take her dogs for a walk. So walking along a road on some spring pack snow and figure I am far enough away from people at this point that I can let the dogs off leash and they won't bother anyone, lol, that was dumb. A few mins down the road I see a couple little yearling cubs at the same time as the dogs who immediately take off chasing the cubs away in to the woods.......for about 10 seconds. Next thing I see is the dogs high tailing it back out of the woods and on to the road with a grumpy sow on their tail, and I am thinking this is not good. By the time this thought had registered in my head the $@#! €@$ dogs had now run past me and left me standing in the road between them and the oncoming sow and I now had a much larger sinking feeling in my stomach. She saw me and stopped about 30-40' away and got up on her hind legs and got quite snarly and did some jaw popping and posturing. I kind of stood there for a second and then just slowly and deliberately started backing down that road until she dropped down on all fours again and started walking away herself (albeit looking over her shoulder and giving me the stink eye pretty regularly). I caught up with the dogs, put them back on their leashes and walked straight back home again, lol. Nothing to blame there but my own ignorance at the time, does make me wonder how effective dogs really are at keeping bears at bay though. Does also tell me that there are times that bears are quite ready to defend their cubs, and rightfully so.
 
The best bear defence costs $21 per year and says "British Columbia Black Bear Licence", bears are guaranteed to steer clear if you have one in your pocket.
 
Dogleg said:
Yep, watched that 100 times with the kids. Even got the shirt. Partly alive is still in the game.

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"Princess Bride" is in my top 20 for sure... classic line on that T-shirt... I periodically catch myself saying that exact phrase... "A Knight's Tale" is up there also...
 
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