|
If you come upon a bear that’s close by and it’s letting you know it’s not happy about your presence, you need to look around and think fast.
While you can usually run away from deer and moose--which might chase you, but give up once they see that you’re a no-threat wuss—never run from a bear. Deer and moose are vegans—no interest in chowing down on a side of human. Bear are more or less omnivores. Your running may trigger an instinctive compulsion to pursue and attack you in a host of animals, wild and domestic.
Inasmuch as black bear can run as fast as thirty miles an hour, you can’t outrun them, but if they charge, you do have options.
If you have the time, the best thing is to find a tall sturdy tree and climb it as fast as you can to a height of about 35 feet. That height, for reasons unknown, seems to convince a bear that you’re not the threat they thought you were and that climbing higher to tear you to pieces consumes too much energy. Black bear are better and more agile tree climbers than are grizzlies, but at that magic 35-foot mark, most bears figure you’ve learned your lesson and climb back down to amble on.
If a bear is going to charge you, it will usually bluff charge first to see what you’re going to do. Keep backing away slowly, talking to it and waving your arms over your head slowly. The further away you get, the less likely it will be to charge you with intent to do serious harm.
The temptation to run may be very difficult to suppress, but it’s essential that you do. As stated above, a bear can outrun you whether you’re going uphill or down. If it charges you, finding a sturdy tree to climb is probably the safest course of action, but there is an even better deterrent, and although one normally wouldn’t consider taking it with them into the forest, a can of pepper spray just might save your life.
If a bear charges and you have pepper spray, it’s most effective within fifteen feet or so. Just make sure you’re upwind so when you trigger the sprayer the painful mixture doesn’t blow back into your face. Aim for the animal’s eyes. While it’s fairly effective, it doesn’t have the same effect on bears as it does on humans, but it will distract a bear long enough to allow you to scramble up a tree to safety or keep backing away.
If you don’t have pepper spray or a sturdy, nearby tree to climb, use anything you can to fight back; a branch, rock, anything that will convince the bear that you’re not going down without a fight. It’s the last recourse, and unfortunately, it may be your only recourse.
 If you have a backpack, leave it on because you can use it to protect yourself. In a grizzly attack, playing dead often deters the bear from continuing the attack, but it doesn’t work with a black bear, so if you fall on your face, it’ll attack your backpack, which might last as a shield long enough for the bear to expend its wrath.
As is the case with any wild animal, there are those bears that don’t see fit to act the way other members of their species do. The advice above is suggestive, not guaranteed. There’s no way to tell how a bear might react to your presence, but the methods described above have been effective in interacting with most bears. Nonetheless, while the advice is sound and based on the opinions of experts, bears should be avoided due to their unpredictable natures.
Moose and Deer Can Be Dangerous
One would think that a wild animal that can weigh up to 1,400 pounds and has antlers that often weigh 60+ pounds would be avoided at all costs by people. Well, if you thought that, you thought wrong. While moose are generally shy, they can be approached and even fed by people. They can be docile depending on what sex they are and what season it is. If the animal is the wrong sex in the wrong season they can get extremely aggressive. You don’t want an animal that can stand six feet at the shoulder and run as fast as 40 mph coming after you. Bottom line to those with normal intelligence: Don’t approach a moose. Instead, admire the beast from a safe distance.
As with all dangers in life, not everyone possesses common sense, and since moose can be laid back, approaching one is like holding a firecracker on a dare until the fuse almost gets to the explosive.
While driving along Route 100 near Stowe, Vermont, a few years back, I saw a bull moose with an enormous rack eating some tasty twigs in a roadside apple orchard. Tourists and natives alike had pulled over to watch and photograph the phenomenon, which for many of them was a first and probably unique glimpse of a moose in the wild.
One woman, obviously a tourist wearing a red sweater no less, was either incredibly brave or managed a combined 400 on her college boards. She decided it was a swell idea to get as close as possible to the huge beast so her husband could take a picture of her palling around with the bull. I pulled over in case they needed help piecing her back together when that moose charged. Her husband, who obviously did a lot better on his college boards, quickly snapped the shot then yelled at her through clenched teeth to back away from the snorting moose slowly. She made it, but had she gone much closer, she could have been in some serious trouble.
Fortunately, it was late summer, when antlers on bulls have reached their full growth and a bull’s life is pretty much like that in a Gary Larsen cartoon. They knock back a few beers and chow down on guacamole. But had it been rutting season, that bull probably would have made short work of that woman. Had it been a cow moose with calves and springtime, same situation.
Next Page >>
Page 3
| Page 1 | Page-2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 |
|
