Posted on 07/25/2011 8:28:15 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
A grizzly bear sow with a cub attacked a group of teenagers on a month-long survival-skills course Saturday night in the Talkeetna Mountains, causing severe injuries to two of the hikers, according to Alaska State Troopers.
(snip)
The group was on the 24th day of a 30-day backpacking trip, school spokesman Bruce Palmer said by phone from Wyoming. It was the group's first day unaccompanied by adult instructors, Palmer said.
"For the last bit of the course, we would have them travel as a student group without the instructors, utilizing the skills that they've learned over time," Palmer said.
(snip)
The seven group members were in a line, calling out to make noise as they crossed the creek, Palmer said. The first hiker had apparently made it out of the water and was out of sight of the others when he began screaming, Palmer said.
The grizzly mauled the teen, attacked another group member, then returned to the first victim, Palmer said.
"It sounds like it was moving around within the group," Palmer said. The hikers carried three canisters of bear spray, but there was no initial indication that the hikers used the repellent, Palmer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
You folks need to put up some firearm pics for us.
(Shamelessly attempting to make this into a gun porn thread)
You don’t think that people who bear hunt and serve as guides on bear hunts are experts?
You don’t think that those who live in AK are experts?
That can’t be true, everyone here says bear spray doesn’t work.
No. Sarah Palin is not a bear expert.
Hunters and hunter guides can provide good information but keep in mind these are people armed with guns. What experience would they have with bear spray?
Even then their stories aren’t scientific studies.
If you want to know what gun to carry when guiding people out bear watching talk to psycofreep.
If you want to know if bear spray is effective read the studies.
My 458 mag using the 530 grain load brings down a charging bull elephant. It’s overkill on the bears in my area... and I wouldn’t settle for less!
“No. Sarah Palin is not a bear expert.”
I am amused.
Sarah Palin lives in AK, a very much outdoors person, married to an autdoors person...both fishers and hunters, but she is no expert.
You live in NJ and are an expert.
Amusing.
“No. Sarah Palin is not a bear expert.”
Sarah Palin Bear Expert, Sarah Palin Bear Expert.....
OOOPS I must stop thinking naughty thought!!!!
Several years ago the State Troopers flew me out to pronounce two hikers that had come out on the wrong side of a brown bear. The hikers had pepper sprayed the bear with no effect. From what I could observe, the bear grabbed them by the head and shook them to break their necks. Bad scene in heavy alders.
Really?
Well she is the MAMMA GRIZZLY!
But I think even so, Sarah would never describe herself as a “bear” expert.
Not a NJ black bear expert, nor an Alaska brown bear expert.
It might be because her degree isn’t in biology, or because she has never studied bears or been involved in bear studies.
But Sarah might know more than the average bear having been subjected to many studies and experts on bears in her time as Governor. As well as the experience you noted.
Point taken.
But just living in Alaska doesn’t make you a brown bear expert any more than living in the Poconos makes me a black bear expert.
Also, once again, let’s keep in mind that people who are hunting have guns. They don’t carry bear spray. They are unlikely to have any experience with bear spray.
Hikers and runners(like Sarah) are the ones most likely to carry bear spray and not a firearm (Sarah carries neither when running). Firearms are heavy and the best ones for using against bears are even heavier. The other concern is legality. Just recently made it legal in national parks for instance.
The guys who are bear experts, who studied the efficacy of bear spray, who have degrees in biology and animal behavior, who have also hunted bears!,they say it’s effective.
Also all the people who survived bear attacks because they used bear spray.
Yeah, I’m going to trust them.
You've got that right! LOL
Oh well, that just means there are plenty of volunteers to be bear chow while we are seeking safer ground. ;^)
Thank you.
(Been begging for pics all morning here)
Was this a typo, or did you mean to say the 12 ga wouldn't work?
In my youth, I shot at a range with all manner of crap left on it - Dishwashers, Tv', etc. I remember hitting a cooking pot left by someone at 30 yards with a simple 2 3/4" hollowpoint lead slug. I figured it would pancake and dent the pot, as the pot was a much harder alloy and about 3/4"-1 inch thick on the bottom - but the slug blew clean through. With slugs today being saboted, and made of unique alloys that are harder than lead, and especially with the specialty rounds you can get, I would think a modern 3" or 3 1/2" saboted slug would be as effective as anything for head shots, if placed right. Not that I know anything about bear.
I remember outdoor life doing a piece on a guy who offed a Grizzly point blank with a .22LR pistol to the noggin. On the necropsy, out of twelve rounds or so, a whole bunch had found brain.
If the 12 ga doesn't work reliably, do you know why? Anatomical issue?
I have no experience with bears. However, I do know that bear spray is ineffective at stopping a simple dog fight. When two dogs (bred for guard duty) just up and decide to go at it, you realize that many animals (even domestics) have a mode switch in their head. Once they enter that “attack” mode, they feel no pain, and are relatively oblivious to outside stimuli. They don’t think clearly, and there are precious few ways to reach them and make them stop. You can’t even grab a collar to pull them apart, as in their frenzy, they can turn and attack you - that’s how out of it they are. Lots of pics of those after-effects on trainer’s arms online.
Finally got control over the dogs and made them get along, but bear spray wasn’t a viable option once they initiated. You really have to see a cuddly, fuzzy, funny, loving pet slip into that mode to understand it. Suddenly they’re like a robot killing machine, oblivious to the outside world, oblivious to pain and discomfort, and just violently biting, shaking, and tearing as fast as they can. They are a different animal.
So the truth on bear spray may be in the middle, and depend on how pissed a bear is, and how initiated their attack has become. One walking up to you, to play with you as a chew toy, may break off if it’s hit from twenty feet away. But I would not trust bear spray to stop a pissed off bear close in, especially once an attack mode was initiated in it’s head. If it’s an intermitant deterrent, why trust your life with it?
Based on my non-bear animal experience, on that trail, once the bear had the kid and was in attack mode, pepper spray would surely have been useless to stop the attack. The only way the attack was being stopped was with a well placed bullet by someone skilled with guns and calm under pressure.
Not that spray isn’t better than nothing. But that doesn’t change the fact that sending kids (who are more likely to encounter a bear due to inexperience), without giving them the only way to stop an attack was gross negligence. If there wasn’t a kid there good enough with a gun, there should have been an adult who was.
I think Psycho and his buds just want people on this site to not trust an inferior option, when a firearm is so far superior. We need eery Freeper we can get.
PS - love your tag.
I own a double barrel derringer called an Alaskan Survival 45colt - 410 bottom barrel 45/70 upper barrel from the damage it does to my had to fire it I am sure it would stop a bear!
It knocked the son to the ground and slashed him across the face, so he punched it in the nose (like all of the "experts" recommend) and it responded by biting his hand. He then threw his other arm across his neck to protect his throat and the bear bit that arm as well.
All this time, the father is beating on the bear with his bow, but to little effect. Suddenly the bear stops its attack, turns toward the father, takes two steps, and falls over dead.
The arrow had hit it straight through the heart. It managed to inflict all of that damage after taking a direct hit from a broadhead.
Three days after the attack, the Wyoming State Legislature passed an emergency bill allowing bow hunters to carry handguns for self defense.
Had a neighbor, who when young had married local Indian girl, had 3 kids, village gave them land across the river, built cabin; then his Indian wife went back to her people and the alcohol. The guy fell apart. Anyway, he'd take canoe across the Yukon, sit down and ponder what had happened to his life. So anyway, this guy was a pot head too and one day his dog and him went over to the cabin, walked up river bank towards cabin with his .06 and sat down burned one. When he was done,got up to walk to cabin and walked right into a sow grizz with two almost grown cubs. He shot the momma emptied the gun into her and no more ammo. The two cubs kept circlin him and he said his dog's barking is why he's here today. Cubs knew their momma was dead and didn't like it. They just didn't have to guts to charge my neighbor without their momma there. After a few hairy minutes, the cubs wondered off into the woods. True story and the neighbor says he was high as heck the entire time,nuts.
Salmon in the alders on game trail along creek often was from a week or two before, but I bet that's what happened to those kids. They probably didn't put two and two together, no joke. I see grizz playing in deep holes in creeks from time to time, bobbing up and down, splashing around, no joke.
How do you post Picts, I forget? I have a bunch on photobucket of blks at my bait station this spring, will post if somebody tells me how.
But the study I am referring to, determined that it was indeed the anatomy and the nature of the bear’s body structure that resists the 12 gage shotgun with slugs.
A Brown Bear's frontal muscle structure is layer upon layer of dense ligaments, sinew and muscle fiber, as well heavy bone. 12 gage slugs & Buckshot failed all penetration tests on actual bear carcases and skulls repeatedly.
The skull on a bear is also quite thick and is layered in much the same way as their frontal chest area. The 12 gage slug only dented the skull and did not fully penetrate it.
The 12 gage greatly lacks velocity and bullet performance to deal with Brown Bear sized game. Slugs are not jacketed and quickly flatten out on impact, which causes it to rapidly dissipate energy and mass. (Which is below standard in the first place.)
Common sense does not work here. Only physics. The low sectional density in relation to the diameter of the 12 gage slug is the key factor. It's sectional density is slightly only above 110, which is considered substandard for effective penetration in strong bodied animals like Brown Bear. They also deliver low impact energy of 1400 pounds and operate at low velocities of around 1200 fps.
Heavy rifle calibers like the 375 H&H, at the velocities they generate, translate into concentrated energy, plus controlled expansion in relation to a sectional density above 350 and stronger bullet design. Which is exactly why they will bring an animal the size and strength of a Brown Bear down in it's tracks. All that energy gets transferred deep into the animal's vital areas.
Muzzle velocity of a 350 grain bullet easily reaches 2400 fps, and delivers 5800 Foot pounds of bone cracking energy, and carries a sectional density of over 350.
I hope that explains it a bit better.
I have had them bluff charge me countless times when the cubs were by her side, but they usually stop in the last 30 feet. They have a strong sense of self preservation when they have cubs to care for. I would hate to kill a protective mother for no reason.
They also charge with their head high and weave side to side. They also don't run as fast as they are capable of. This is how I gage a bluff charge.
The ones I have had to dispatch all came at me low to the ground, head down, eyes looking up. And they ripped the vegetation around them as they clawed the ground for traction. All of them were also wounded and you can see the rage and vengeance in their eyes. Their intent is unmistakable.
It is by far, the scariest thing any human can live through.
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