"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Kevin Brooks wrote:

The ol' Black Bear actually accounts for many more attacks against
humans in
the US than does the Grizzly, which makes sense being as they are more
widely distributed and have a larger population. I carried a 12 guage
pump

Are you certain of that? I've read quite consistently that
the black bear is really very slow to attack a human, even
when it has cubs. Attacks are extremely rare.

Huh? *Fatalities* due to black bear attacks are somewhat rare, but the
attacks sure are not. Note:

"In late May, a black bear preyed upon hiker Glenda Ann Bradley about 10
miles outside Gatlinburg, Tenn. It was the first recorded black bear
fatality in the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Then,
early in July, Canadian biathlete Mary Beth Miller was killed by a black
bear outside Quebec City. After that, human-bear conflicts made news all
summer: Black bears clawed or bit four Boy Scouts in July at the Philmont
Scout
Ranch in northeastern New Mexico..."Conflict is increasing all over," said
Gary Shelton, who has studied
bears for 35 years and written two books considered to be the seminal works
on bear aggression. "What's happening is bear attacks are taking place where
they haven't before, there's a higher level of fatalities, and there are
more deadly attacks by black bears...." Shelton, meanwhile, is preparing a
paper for the International Bear
Association conference next May that details his theory: Black bears, in
certain circumstances, will indeed prey on humans. "There's going to be a
slow, steady increase of predatory black bear attacks that will catch bear
managers off guard," he said." ( www.bears.org/pipermail/bearfolks/
2000-October/000447.html )

I can see where you might have the idea that the black bear is a rather
docile and non-threatening species; I thought pretty much the same when my
dad passed on the bit about more black bear attacks than Grizzly attacks,
something he had seen on a TV documentary. A Google will disabuse you of
that belief--there have been black bear attack fatalities here in the US (I
ran across mention of a documented case in Colorado, where the bear took a
timberman out of his cabin, killed him, and fed on him, and another in New
Mexico, where an elderly woman was similarly attacked and killed in her
cabin, so there are two documented fatalities right there to add to the
above mentioned Gatlinburg case, and the Quebec incident you mention below).
Checking into this, I also found that there appears to be a growing body of
experts who say that the previously taught action for handling a Grizzly
attack (curl into a ball and play dead) may be bad-wrong; the
punch-in-the-nose might be a better defense. Similarly, I noted that one
fellow indicated that properly used pepper spray is effective about 75% of
the time--leaving you wondering what the hell you do if you are in that
unlucky 25% where it does not work.


I think the last I heard, a couple years ago a woman jogging
around somewhere in Quebec was killed by a black bear. It
was an exceptional event!

Not exceptional as far as being an attack, nor is it truly exceptional as
being a fatality due to black bear attack. From perusing the chatter from
apparently knowledgable folks regarding this matter, it appears that in
British Columbia black bear attacks and fatalities have actually outnumbered
Grizzly incidents.


I guess I should find out more. We've got *plenty* of black
bears around here, and they're definitely done with their
winter naps.

Had my first encounter with one for this year just a few days
ago. It growled at my dog, made a short charge towards the
dog, and then took off. This would be my 5th encounter with
local black bears in about 3 years, and usually, they just
skeedadle as fast as possible when they see me. The critters
are *everywhere* around here now days!

There have been a lot of documented attacks against domestic animals. The
bears have apparently begun increasing their population in our area (between
D.C. and Richmond), but I have yet to see one around here myself. My parents
live up in the Shenandoah Valley, and I have encountered both sign and the
actual critters themselves up that way; walking up the trail beside a creek
I was going to fish, I once kicked one out of the brush and watched him
scurry away--it was so comical I had to laugh outloud. He was running as
hard as he could while repeatedly looking back at me with this obviously
terrified look about him, trying to see if I was going to chase him. Danged
thing took off up the side of the ridge (a pretty steep one) and I swear he
was accelerating the whole time. Made me realize if I ever did encounter one
who was testy that outrunning him is *not* an option.

Brooks



SMH