[SJackson]

Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me to be on or off . And ping me is you see articles of interest.

Video at the source.

The parks advice

If you do surprise a bear, here are a few guidelines to follow that may help:

Talk quietly or not at all; the time to make loud noise is before you encounter a bear. Try to detour around the bear if possible.

Do not run! Back away slowly, but stop if it seems to agitate the bear. Assume a nonthreatening posture. Turn sideways, or bend at the knees to appear smaller.

Use peripheral vision. Bears may interpret direct eye contact as threatening.

Drop something (not food) to distract the bear. Keep your pack on for protection in case of an attack.

If a bear attacks and you have pepper spray, use it!

If the bear makes contact, protect your chest and abdomen by falling to the ground on your stomach, or assume a fetal position to reduce the severity of an attack. Cover the back of your neck with your hands. Do not move until you're certain the bear has left.

As the video shows, the hikers turned and ran off at top speed, the bear ambled on down the trail.

The only person I've known personally, second hand, injured by a bear was decades ago. A friend was camping in a park known for black bears with a group of college kids. Late at night while drinking around the campfire a bear wandered through, probably smelled garbage. The kids, both genders, screamed and ran off in different directions. The bear ran off in his own direction. One of the humans tripped and broke a leg. Hope all these guys made it through the woods in one piece.

[Karliner]

Similar to walking in some ghettos... always carry if possible

[PeteB570]

Those folks were headed to the ridge at a right good pace. At the end you could see them going up and to the right.

[Daffynition]

we have our share of black bear up here in the NEK...

Or have an attack cat handy....

[BobL]

“Do not run! Back away slowly, but stop if it seems to agitate the bear. Assume a nonthreatening posture. Turn sideways, or bend at the knees to appear smaller.”

Actually, it looked like running and scattering was the right thing to do, at least in that video. On top of that, the bear then turned towards the idiots who were screaming.

[Viking2002]

As someone born and raised in Pooh bear country, all of the above are good advice. Everywhere you got were taught any sort of outdoor training and skills - outdoor school, Boy Scouts - you always had a five minute blurb emphasizing encounter tactics. The worst type of encounter (as if there any good ones, besides a county zoo) is in the spring, when Mama is taking the cubs for a stroll. It can go from oops to ugly awfully quick. We have a large mountain lake back home, and the shore is dotted with cottages. Most are little more than single-wide trailers with a big porch on one side and an attached carport on the other. They're dressed up with a lot of gingerbread and some landscaping to give them character. Well, when bears look for a place to hibernate, they can get through that wood lattice trim around the foundation in short order. The local paper each spring usually has several reports of the DNR Police wildlife folks having to relocate a mama and her cubs. The black bear population at that end of the state was dropping for a long time, so they declared bear hunting illegal for years. And boy, did they come back with a vengeance. They finally started selling tickets to hunt bears again, but it's hardly put a dent in the problem. The local paper has a weekly bear report now, has for years. Most are hit by traffic, and a lot of those have been in the 125-150 pound range, but some 400+ pounders have been collected by the DNR, too. They wander into towns, get into garbage cans, and generally make nuisances of themselves. It's like the elk - they were hunted to extinction in their native eastern range, so they're slowly being reintroduced into West Virginia again from their western cousins. Deer are already dinner of the hoof for a lot of people up there, and they'll field clean a roadkill carcass if it's fresh and not too mangled. I can see that on the horizon if elk get a quicker hoofhold than expected.