Bear Attack

[Southern Breeze]

I found out about this late yesterday. The campground where this ocurred is only about 40 miles north of where I live. I've camped and hiked there many times.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...8GVI1D00.shtml

[bubba]

It's a further demonstration that wild animals are unpredictable and since it's Spring some are dangerous now as well. Black bears usually avoid people, but in the Spring the do become aggressive and with humans encroaching more into their turf attacks can be expected.

[Frank McGrath]

This bear had to be different. I have camped in areas where bears live and have never had a problem. This bear may be sick, or was very hungry. They just dont attack for the heck of it. I just hope no others are harmed before this bear is caught. I also wish a speedy recovery for the mother and brother of the victim.

Frank McGrath

[bubba]

I read that they believe they caught the bear in a trap.

[Kilted KT]

sounds like one of two things happened:

1. the campers somehow got between the mother and her cubs. no matter what kinds of firearms yo umay have, this is definitly a very ugly situation

or..


2. The bear was sick. Sick animals will do all kinds of things that are not normally of their nature.

There is a chance the bear just got hunger, or the kids were screwing with it...but more often than not a bear attack is a result of one of the option noted above.

oh..and a bottle of bear spray does very little when a ton of teeth and claws is charging at you.

[flairball]

There were some problems on Vancouver Island a few years ago. Seems some of the black bears started to figure out that the large number of tourists visiting the island could indeed be considered a food source. It is rare, but it does happen in some cases where the bears are exposed to people regularly. Of course exposure alone won't do it, there has to be other contributing factors.

The good news is that bear season is now open in several states, and provinces. I'll be bear hunting in September here in Mass. This year I suspect I'll be wearing a kilt while hunting.

I've never had to use bear spray, but I've seen it used, and know people who have. It's effective. The problem is, the close range of the spray pretty much ensures that, should you have to use it, you'll be changing your undies afterwards, should you have not gone regimental that day.

[AckZel]

I saw a document from TV which told that bear population in US is getting out of hands. Because there is too much bears to fit in the wildlife they get too used to people and this type of thing can happen. That is not normal bear behaviour because bears should fear people. I have seen wild bear once and it took off when we tried to get closer for a good photo. We got only about 100m away. I think US is really in need of cutting down bear population. And supporting that is the fact that some of you have seen "several" bears. Bears should be very hard and rare to spot in the wildlife. I've been wandering forests through whole my short but adventurous life and only seen a bear once. Some people here can live in forests all their lives never seeing one. And boy, do we have forests! (75% of surface area) It really looks like there just is too much bears in US.

[Riverkilt]

"I have seen wild bear once and it took off when we tried to get closer for a good photo. "


Um....Ackwell...buddy....this is what gets human beings eaten by bears...lucky it didn't take off towards you for a snack.

Ron

[macwilkin]

I have even seen some prople complain to the rangers in the park about the bears, when their own stupidity caused the problem in the first place.

Same here -- there is a reason why we rangers have to enforce park rules and regulations -- it's called the safety of our visitors, even the ones who do not understand why.

A sad story...my heart goes out to the family, especially the 6 year-old. Sad.

T.

[bubba]

The first thing to do is limit encroachment on the bears habitat. When I was a kid my dad, grandfather and I hunted alot. The areas we hunted had bears and we saw them on a regular basis and we kept our distance. Those same areas today are subdivisions, strip malls and suburbs. The problem isn't too many bears, it's way too many people in the bears territory.