this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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https://myodfw.com/articles/2024-spring-bear-hunting-forecast
https://www.kptv.com/2023/05/24/bear-attacks-la-grande-man-after-he-shoots-it-twice/
Looked it up fairly recently (cuz you know men got mad about bears or whatever) but don’t have source on me: Black bears cause about 1.2 human deaths per year across all of America.
That's probably about right. Black bears don't get into fights they don't have to. I don't know how many dozens of black bears I've been around, but the only problem I've ever had involved a cub. Even that was a communication issue! I was trying to get the hell out of there, the cub was moving towards me, and the sow didn't like me moving in any direction lol
How did you handle it
Made myself as big as possible, had my .357 out just in case, and not as slowly as I meant to continued to walk backwards the way I had come. Once she stopped coming towards me I turned around and went back to where I knew a clearing was. I plopped my ass in the middle of the clearing just in case, and waited a while. Once the shadows moved enough I headed back up the path and got to my truck.
Takes them five years to finally kill that second human
The only stories I hear about black bear related deaths typically involve some kind of "Messing With Sasquatch" moment on a couple of cubs.
It's kinda why I never got the whole would you rather thing. As a fairly big dude, I'd much prefer the bear over a man or a woman. The bear is more than likely just going to scamper off. Even decent people in bad situations are very dangerous creatures, and more than likely, I'm just going to have to take care of a complete stranger in the woods.
A black bear is more likely to scamper off. A brown bear is going to expect you to scamper off. As an avid backpacker, I'm not stoked about the plan to reintroduce brown bears to my state.
I do a lot of hiking as well, and yes brown bears are definitely more of a pucker your b-hole scenario. But for the most part as long as you don't sneak up on one accidentally or accidentally get between the bear and the cubs, they're fairly harmless. Ya just gotta have something that makes some noise when you're hiking, I have buddies that just strap a cow bell on their packs.
It would still be pretty rare for one to outright attack a full grown person, they are generally aware that peeps be dangerous.
The problem with that is then you don't see all of the other wildlife that is fun to come across while in the wilderness. You won't have any more random deer or racoon sightings, since everything will run from your bell. Obviously it's better to be safer, but I'm generally pretty happy that we don't have fearless apex predators in our forests. We have a few apex predators with the black bear, grey wolf, and cougar, but those are all very wary of humans, and generally not a threat like the brown bear would be.
That's fair, though it doesn't seem to bother the little critters like rabbits or racoons for some reason. But yeah, it'll def make the deer scamper off.
I think it's because their strategy for avoiding predators is "Stay in trees or hide in holes" rather than "Run away"