Posted on 12/22/2017 6:00:42 AM PST by marktwain
Over 20 years ago in 1996, I was driving to Phoenix, Arizona to catch a flight to Wisconsin.
I had the radio on. The news was reporting a horrific bear attack on Mount Lemon, near Tucson, Arizona. A teenage girl had been badly mauled by a bear, in her tent, as part of a 4-H outing.
A camp counselor had accessed a handgun and shot the bear, driving it off.
As the hours rolled along, the AP stories started getting vaguer and the story less heroic. The Internet wasn't well developed in 1996. It took me several years to track down the “camp counselor”.
Then, the notes and email were lost. Finally, in 2017, I made contact again.
The “camp counselor” who shot the 356 lb black bear off of Anna Knochel was Brett Kramer. He was the supervising adult in charge, an employee of the University of Arizona, in his official capacity as an Extension Agent. The details used to fill in and correct newspaper accounts of the time come from my interviews with Brett.
In 1996, it was the twilight before dawn when the big black bear entered the girl's tent at 5:15 in the morning of 25 July. He pinned 16-year-old Anna Knochel down and started biting and tearing at her. Anna did not make a lot of noise.
She tried to protect her vitals and managed to get on her stomach. The bear bit at the back of her head, her shoulder, and back. It tore her leg open from the buttocks to the knee. There were extensive claw wounds from her scalp all down her back.
It took minutes for people in the camp to be alerted that a bear was attacking Anna in her tent.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
If control of these lands are given to the states(as they should) would the laws be worse?
I guess the fact that horses are an invasive species in the United States has totally escaped their notice?
It should be legal to hunt them at any time by any means that the hunter chooses. They should be designated as a nuisance animal.
Quote:
“Ageing bears that hadn’t eaten enough to hibernate through the winter would emerge early, starving to death; they’d eat anything.”
I have to chuckle at that - 35 years ago when I was married, my wife and I
planned a canoe trip in Algonquin Provincial Park in northern Quebec.
There are scores of islands and all connected via lakes and rivers and bogs and the like.
Very, very remote, and ‘zero impact camping’, no facilities, etc. Very beautiful and lots of wildlife.
Back then they had the largest number of black bear attacks in North America in that area,
and that had us a little concerned.
When we checked in to start our trip, we asked about the bear attacks.
One of the rangers told us not to worry - they thought it was only older bears that were weak and hungry.
That didn’t give us the ‘warm feeling’ of safety. ;^)
Very funny; I guess because they’d be older, weak, and hungry you two would be able to kick its ass?
I had a run-in with a black bear a couple of years ago along the NY/NJ border near West Point; an Indian student had been killed nearby a few months before by one, so I took it very seriously. I did what the books said; made myself “big”, moved towards it (hard to do - not a natural act), and yelled at the top of my voice (all after lloking for cubs, picking up a nice-sized limb and getting hold of my pepper spray). Thankfully it worked; when it had loped away a safe distance, I took a picture of it.
I would never go camping anywhere without a firearm....hell I don’t go to Walmart without one.
I'm inclined to think the guy had the right idea, though.
One important thing to remember about bears is that shooting them between the eyes may not be very effective. That thing that looks like their skull is mostly just jaw muscle; the actual braincase is fairly small, set low, and behind some very thick bone.
It’s not just campers who should be wary. I live in suburbia in Pennsylvania (the state game commision says black bear country in PA is “most of the state”). Black bears will sometimes roam through peoples yards. There are too many of them.
One important thing to remember about bears is that shooting them between the eyes may not be very effective.
You need to aim below the eyes a bit. Shoot them up the nose.
Here is a story with a picture where an eleven year old boy shot a charging grizzly up the nose.
“Nice Bears!”
Goldilocks would feel at Home.
I could never live there; heck, I wouldn’t live anywhere that even had mountain lions. You’ll inevitably find some dope feeding them (even when it is illegal), and even without that these are wild animals that are carnivorous. What does a shotgun do against a grizzly? I guess more than it would do against a polar bear...
The secret is you don’t shoot the bear.
Shoot the person you’re with in the leg.
Then run!
A 12 gage loaded with three inch magnum bear slugs will kill anything that walks in North America. 00 or 000 buckshot has also proven very effective against even the largest Alaskan Coastal Brown Bears (The Grizzlies larger cousin).
Nice; how does the recoil compare to that when firing regular “shot”?
That’s an awesome story fro my neck of the woods.
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