Saturday, May 03, 2008

Studying up on Bears


Bears figure large in the imagination of anyone contemplating an Alaskan adventure - myself included. Alaska has four bears of very different personality: Black Bears, Brown/Grizzly Bears, Brown/Kodiak Bears, and Polar Bears. All are different species, and all can eat you up. And if a bear decides it's going to have you for dinner, well, good luck to you then. 

So I've been reading Stephen Herrero's definitive study: Bear Attacks, Their Causes And Avoidance. A worthy book. And very scary if you read it from beginning to end. 

Basically, the first half describes various bear attacks on people, and they usually go like this: "Now it's very rare for a bear to attack a human, but here's an instance where..." and something grisly ensues. So I recommend starting in the middle of the book, where he starts to describe the characteristics of bears, where they live, what they eat, what kind of tracks and signs they leave behind. Then, after learning about them, go back to the middle and learn how to avoid them. When you're all done with that, then read about what happens if you mess up and find yourself in some kind of bear/human up close and personal encounter.

Good reading. Guaranteed to give you good dreams. Oh, yeah.

So I read up on bears. Then I went to the zoo and spent the afternoon watching the two Brown Bears around dinner time. Watched them "play" and beat up on each other with claws the size of my fingers. Watched them swim - pretty good at it. Watched them chase each other around at an easy lope - they're pretty darn quick. Those logs and boulders don't slow them down any. Watched them gnaw and claw on a log and basically tear it apart without too much trouble. And then I realized that these two were relatively small for Brown Bears.

Hmmmm. OK, so there's some perspective. 






Here's something interesting that one should know about bears - Black Bears and Brown behave differently around people. And they behave differently in different situations, and depending on what kind of mood the bear happens to be in. The one common factor in most bear/people interactions is this: the bear has more options than the person does. Usually, the bear is the one that makes the decisions. 

So it seems to me that avoiding a bear/person interaction is probably going to be the best place to start. To that end, we'll be getting a couple of marine-grade air horns which according to the research have been pretty effective in letting bears know that there are people around to be avoided. As our second line of defense we'll be carrying bear-spray. This high power super concentrated pepper spray has proven very effective bear deterrent. We'll each be carrying a canister in a holsters attached to the chest strap of our packs. As a last resort, we'll also be carrying a 12 gauge shotgun and lead slugs. 

The goal is not to have to use the shotgun. You're just as likely to piss the bear off as you are to kill it. But if it happens that the bear's got your sweetie in it's paws, what else are you going to do? Poke it with a stick?