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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
Reply by Moristotle
Not a clue, sorry, but let’s share the article and the video with our readers – especially because you say that the scene is very similar to what you saw on the mountain in Alaska. The article was titled “Man Crosses Paths with Mother Bear and Cubs in Tense Footage,” on the Wide Open Spaces website. The encounter it describes occurred in 2017, in Alaska’s Katmai National Park.
The article points out that recording a video was not the smart thing to do. “Many are calling [the videographer] out for his reckless actions, including the National Park...It’s a great example of what not to do when encountering a bear on a trail... The right thing to do is, first, put your camera down and pay attention. You’re dealing with a very large and potentially very dangerous wild animal. Second, back away slowly to maintain a distance of 50 yards from the bear. If the bear continues towards you, as shown in this video, you need to move off the trail and yield the right of way.”
Paul, you said that in your bear encounter, the cubs stayed behind, didn’t trail along as they do in the video, and their mother came at you fast, “one of those situations where someone could have legally drawn a gun and opened fire, but it turned out to be totally unnecessary. Which is why hikers should carry bear-rated pepper spray instead of guns.”
| Copyright © 2020 by Paul Clark |
Seems like he was doing what they said, walking backwards, not losing his cool, just getting film while he does it. In his situation I might too; Momma just didn't seem interested in attacking, and these creatures are so ponderous they don't really FEEL dangerous until they start acting aggressively. Then they can be terrifying. And see how the fellow is hurrying backwards, get winded, while Mpmma is just ambling along? They're that much faster than you are when you're both running, too! One note on the film; at about 1:36 you'll see a dark pile of something-that's moose poop. It's little balls like rabbit poops, about the size of a large marble; I find it amusing that such a huge animal leaves such delicate little poops!
ReplyDeleteWe saw a black bear mom and cubs in the glacier park outside Juneau. She was very black, unlike this bear, which I'm guessing is a grizzly.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it wasn't me who sent the link.
Neil
Roger, right, no sense running. A bear that size--400 to 500 pounds I would guess--can run 100 yards in @ 6 seconds. Even if you are an Olympian, unless you are standing right beside a climbable tree, you wouldn't get out of reach before the bear got to you. If it wanted to get to you.
ReplyDeleteNeil, yes, this is a grizzly sow with cubs, and it is the type of encounter that inspires certain people to write reams of copy about how dangerous theses bears are, how they are just looking for naive tourists to eat, how big a gun you need to carry, etc, etc. In probably 98% of bear/human close contact cases, the bear flees as fast as it can. The guy shooting this video really pushed his luck, but at least he captured some awesome footage from a very rare interaction. Having a bear actually attack is probably about the same as the current odds of dying from Covid-19: less than 1/10th of 1%.
I don't know if anyone else noticed, but a video that pops up immediately after this one shows a much larger male grizzly sitting down practically next to someone at a popular location for filming bears as they catch salmon. The understated hilarious aspect of that video is that the bear is closer to what looks to be a shotgun (no doubt intended for defense against bears) than is the person shooting the video. Again, grizzlies apparently aren't as dangerous as many sensational-minded people--and most hunting magazines--would have us believe.