As of 29 June the investigation has determined that the victim was walking on a trail with his family. The male adult moved forward and became separated and out of sight from the other family members. He apparently saw the bear and realized the bear was tracking him. The bear came out of the brush and bit the victim the first time. At this point the victim did begin to shout and throw rocks at the bear. The bear came back and scratched the victim on the chest and then bit him and appeared to want to pull the victim off the trail. By this time other hikers responded and repelled the bear with rocks, shouting and hitting it with sticks. The rescuers were able to get the victim to the road and call for assistance. During this period the bear stalked the rescue party back to the trailhead.I'm thinking that a 4" 629 loaded with Elmer Keith Memorial 300gr rhino-rollers would work a lot better than sticks and rocks and yelling and running around like a chicken with its head cut off in a situation like this, but maybe that's just me...
(H/T to Michael Silence.)
46 comments:
No, it's not just you.
A prime example why we need to carry in national parks. The bear should, by now, be a bear rug if he wasn't too well perforated.
We have a black bear wandering our northeast counties, a little unusual but not unheard of. Our DNR is beside itself with advice to avoid the bear (duh) and, if you encounter it, to make a loud noise. I suspect they're not thinking about noise from "a 4" 629 loaded with Elmer Keith Memorial 300gr rhino-roller...".
But that would be my choice, too,
Pffft, ponder this, bearseeker, are the "bears" getting more frisky or are the hikers become more intoxicated?
Shootin' Buddy
WV: "Peedines" After drinking all day in the national park, I needed to peedines.
That was funny the first 1,539,822 times.
I see, more intoxicated.
The prosecution rests.
I will wear a suit of bacon and walk about the Smokies and the only thing I will pick up is empty liquor bottles.
The press giving ink to this fiction only encourages the rest of the rummies.
Shootin' Buddy
Dangerous wildlife is never taken seriously by some people. The "poor animals" are just "being themselves" and "defending the invasion of their homes" (a boon they all too often do not wish to extend to humans). When Park Services tracks down the bear and puts it down, they'll be up in arms, and more concerned about the bear than his victim. Sounds so familiar, doesn't it?
Freakin' morons.
"I will wear a suit of bacon"
I have never before thought of any man as apptizing.
And now I just threw up in my mouth a little,
Dang.
The guy directly across the road from me in Daisy Hollow has photos of a black in his yard, the summer before last. This year, I've seen tracks on the creek-bank within 75 yards of my house.
I am not about to fool around with these things.
Agreed! THAT is why carry in National Parks IS a good idea!
Personally, I lean towards 200 grain hot-rod 10mm, but the sentiment remains the same.
Well, for a blackie even a pig sticker like the one Cold Steel sells would do. Black bears are much the same size as a medium size boar, about as dangerous, and not usually as touchy.
Grizzlies are another matter. Teddy Roosevelt called Ursus Horribilis the "grisly bear" for a reason. One being Griz is often a short fuse on four legs.
But in case of an encounter with either bear a 4" Smith 29, 629, 57, or 58 is more than adequate. I am not a purist, anything that will get the job done will do.
Stranger
I've seen some pretty diesel black bears (for East coast anyways) in suburban Virginia standing around in the middle of the street not 100 feet from the kiddies waiting to get on the school bus.
Fifteen years ago a bear would have been nuts to try and snack on a kid, as one of the local folk wouldn't hesitate for a moment to shoot him dead.
These days not so much; the DC sprawl has made it down my way, and those people are bear snacks waiting to happen.
I just had a cunning idea!
Our nation is plauged by two different problems- overly agressive bears with no fear of humans, and hippies. So, we need to get the hippies to have their little Mother Gaia appypollyloggy sessions in our national parks where agressive bears have been spotted. Make sure to give them enough acid and weed to get them really mellow. You know, slow & stupid so they won't run when the bears show up.
And, after the bear noms on what seems to be easy prey, they should get very, very sick- hippies are full of all sorts of bad chemicals. That should teach the bears not to eat people.
A win either way!
I agree a gun's a better weapon than a stick, but at least these folks had the guts to engage the bear and win the day. I'd say kudos are in order. People have earned such a reputation for their sheeplike behavior.
Wife just returned from a week-long excursion to visit an old friend in Ruidoso NM. She lives in town, although the community is wooded and somewhat isolated. Seems that the black bear population is increasingly aggressive. The bears visited daily, roaming among the houses, upending and raiding the dumpsters and climbing the available trees to get on the house decks. Typically two or three pairs every evening. Maybe they know something about the decline of our civilization that we haven't yet come to grips with.
I will take anything that makes a loud noise and throws over 200 grains of jacketed lead at over 1200 f/s instead of throwing rocks and sticks and yelling every time.
Well, technically the Daniel Boone National Forest is not in the Smoky Mountains. KY verses NC/TN and all that.
Here too. We had one in the mall's parking garage less than 3 weeks ago. Fortunately, it wandered back into the woods on its own, rather than having to be put down.
If ya wanna walk around in Bear country unarmed and hoping unicorn farts have made all the bears happy. Go ahead. Bears will be well fed and I won't have to shoot them full of holes and then explain to some nitwit why I had a right to protect my butt.
Maybe if they had song "Don't Worry Be Happy".....Ya know...
In bear country I like packing a 5.5" Redhawk with 300gr SW.
CZ-52. Don't know that I'd want to trust it vs. a Griz, but I think it would do a number on a black bear, or any two legged predators.
I'll bet you people wouldn't be so upset if it had been a WHITE bear.
Paul's right, at least they fought effectively for their friend, rather than just running or calling 911.
Would that the victims at the next mass killing have the same outlook, but they won't.
"There are only thirty of us, and all we have are heavy books and metal chairs! Kill me last!"
Just got back from Yosemite NP in commiefornia. I saw 4 black bears over the course of two days and three times they were just sitting around with people standing ~20' away taking pictures. (saw one by the side of the road hauling ass away from the road.) Thankfully I didn't come across any while hiking since I was legally disarmed. They break into cars cars and whatnot out there to eat stuff, they didn't mention attacks that much.
I did see one guy with a bear bell. If I was a bear I'd eat him first on principle.
Tam,
Are you crazy? A gun really? If you carry a gun the bears will just use it against you. Everyone knows the best way to deter a bear attack is to make you self disgusting to the assailant. Throw up or defecate on yourself. If the bear persists don't resist, he will likely fill up on superfluous ogans like your appendix and gallbladder and leave you alone.
Violence never solved anything. Just give the bear what it wants. Nothing is worth fighting over. Those people had no right to start a rock throwing fight, and carrying guns will merely provoke the bears, escalating the situation. -- Lyle
Black bears evolved on the North American continent as the bitch on a ladder of much bigger, meaner predators. They are mostly vegetarians and much more inclined to avoid than face down other critters that their programming tells them are highly likely to be able to kick them across the forest and back again.
American Grizzly bears are nativized immigrants from the old world, a subspecies of the Russian/European brown bear that wandered over the Bering bridge along with gray wolves and humans. They evolved as top predators and their own instincts tell them they can beat the piss out of just about anything that crosses them. Grizzly bears (and Alaskan browns, same deal, just a larger subspecies) are much, much more dangerous to humans.
That said, a habituated carnivore is a habituated carnivore, and even a meek little black bear that learns through enough experience it really DOESN'T have anything to fear from pink primates can get very dangerous indeed.
Actually, I'd wager dropping a spastic headless chicken into the fray would work well, what with easy meals always being appreciated (as apparent by this bear's behavior). However, it'd be a bear to conceal.
Joe in PNG has the winner, IMO. Fix the bear and hippie problems as two-fer.
Ever consider a run for President?
We've had some black bears found in the expensive districts of this quite urban and rather hoity-toity South FL county where I live. I'd rather not kill 'em, I'd rather terrify them so that they run when they see or smell a human. Someone proposed shooting them with shot of a size somewhere between that of birdshot and buckshot. He claimed it worked, due to the combination of loud noise, blinding flash, and ouchy stinging pain.
I would like the black bears to get to the point that when they see or smell a human, they automatically think "OMG, humans! Shock! Pain! Run away!"
I think that if such were the case we could save the lives of both bears and humans.
Justthisguy,
"I would like the black bears to get to the point that when they see or smell a human, they automatically think "OMG, humans! Shock! Pain! Run away!" "
"Don't taze me, Ranger Smith!"
:D
Hey, it works for porcupines and electric eels.
A year or two ago I read an account of a guy who was walking nude through some of our northern grasslands/forests and encountered a griz. He was "armed" with a mighty .38 revolver. When they found the guy, all of the rounds had been fired, and the bear had eaten his thigh meat.
So in addition to knowing that a .38 is wholly inadequate for griz (duh!) we also know that it is unwise to be nude in the wilderness and that griz prefers thighs. Just like me at KFC.
cap'n chumbucket
Surprised Rusty P Bucket hasn't visited to yell "B'ars won't bother ye! THey only git mean when ye's thretenin' em!!"
@ Joe in PNG: Reminds me of the scene in 'Lord of War', where Nicholas Cage is all coked up at 0-dark-thirty in Africa, and even the hyenas avoid him. Bears can't see very well, so I've read, but their sense of smell is keen. I'm betting they would need to be pretty desperate to go after something as foul-smelling as your average hippy :-D
Coyotes are a problem in suburbs of NYC.
http://www.macon.com/2010/06/30/1180679/ny-girl-attacked-by-coyote-in.html
Now if we could just get the bears and coyotes to cruise the upper west side ...
We have bears and some mean people here in eastern NC, so I will always opt for going armed in the woods. I ever encountered a bear, I would surely be tempted to try that tactic recently used by the guy in western NC who saw Bigfoot in his yard---he said "I rough-talked him".
NCDave, A Wannabe Rough-Talker to Bears
Funny thing-- when Tam mentioned the 629 w/RR's, I was thinking, "Yeah, but even an airweight Chief's Special with Buffalo Bore Heavy .38's would likely have been mightily appreciated."
Or, if all you've got is a stick, make sure it's pointy, nomesayne?
I can tell SB is joking, but I don't get the applicability, here, unless we're to assume that the victim here was a drunk who somehow lured the black bear? Antagonized the bear? The family was drunk and their story is supposed to be drunken maunderings? At any rate, I had gathered that the victim was a child.
Jokes are much funnier when they don't have to be explained.
I was always told by my grandfather that all you had to do when being stalked/charged by a bear was to throw shit in his face....
Whene I asked "where will I get the shit?" I was informed, "don't worry, it'll be there when you need it.
We've had two sitings in the past year just south of Dayton.
I was going to say it was a made up story, but then realized it wasn't in the west, where they make up bear stories.
Like that guy Jerry Ruth did "out west". He even had good backup material for his made up bear story. Like a dead grizzly bear. And a long stay in the hospital. And 3 empty 41 shells in his gun.
It was in the west tho, so obviously was made up. Even tho you can google him.
I have a friend in West Milford, NJ who just last week had a brown bear on his deck looking in their window. It then ambled off. Another friend in the same general area was telling us about a nearby couple who came home and found a bear in their kitchen. It broke the window and climbed in.
These are rural areas but houses are within a couple of hundred feet of each other and there is lots of traffic on the roads.
Last week we had a small bear in my town near our church. We are NOT rural in the least it is a small suburban area near Wayne, NJ. Shoot one and you have so much trouble it is crazy!
"These are rural areas but houses are within a couple of hundred feet of each other..."
Rich, A bit off-topic, but I hate to inform you, but if the houses are a couple of hundred yards apart---it ain't rural no more! Stretch that distance to a mile or more and you'd be getting closer.
Just sayin'.
Rich:
Shoot one anyway. You might save some child from gettin et by a habituated bear.
Learn to not talk to cops, and you'll stop getting in trouble for civilized and responsible behavior.
I think the term is: "shoot, shovel, and shut up".
The sad thing is that, should you have to kill a bear to protect yourself, you probably wouldn't even be allowed to turn it into a proper rug.
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