Did the bear look like this and did it smell like a six pack of Labatt Blue........!
Posted on 08/12/2003 9:37:23 AM PDT by d-back
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:39:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
He was a 400-pound hulking young bruin officials described as "predatory," looking for a meal.
She said he came up behind her on a trail in Wawayanda State Park in Sussex County, chased her down and tackled her.
She said she did the only thing she could. She threw a hard elbow at his snout, and caught him flush, stunning the bear and giving her time to escape.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Check out what a professional hunting guide says about black bears:
Never Trust a Black Bear
"Hunters are arguably the best educated about the dangers associated with bear encounters, but invariably talk turns to grizzlies or Alaskan brown bears when the word "danger" comes up. Seldom will hunters talk about black bears being anything more than a "simple" nuisance. Nothing could be further from the truth. . . Another fallacy about black bears is that they'll leave you alone if you play dead. In truth, black bears normally kill for food; when you play dead you only make the job of killing easier. . ."
Here's the link: www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/hunting/article/0,13285,193764,00.html
And visa-versa.
They should. Humans are about the only animal in the New Jersey forest that can kill a bear. Dogs can, too, but it takes a pack.
In areas where they are common it's often reccomended that hikers wear bells so the bears can hear them. Most of the time they would rather steer clear of people than confront them. Just don't suprise them or get between a Sow and her cubs.
Since it's well know how children tend to creep quietly and stealthily through the woods (and everywhere else they go), I don't think you'll have any real trouble.
But if you have private property in that area of NJ and are concerned about the bear that lives there just drop me a note and I'll stop by during the season appropriately equiped to address the situation for you.
Did the bear look like this and did it smell like a six pack of Labatt Blue........!
Black bears never stalk humans, they always back off with the following exceptions. Female with cubs, crazy older female that never had any, or they were stillborn, male in fall mating, you threaten the bear during dinner. If the bear happens to kill they might nibble, but that's it. Black bears are bush pigs and behave just like their domesting cousins farm pigs. If the farmer falls down in the sty the pigs kill and eat him. They are not preditory to the farmer though.
Again, if the 400 bear(male) wanted this woman for dinner, she'd a been et. There's a better chance she smelled pretty and he was just being amorous.
As for 1stFreedom: Amen, brother! Looks like the NJ Bear Hunt '03 is ON ON ON! Unless the radicals stage a big late inning rally--always possible with that dope Bradley Campbell in charge of DEP--I'll be somewhere in Sussex with my Mossberg 695. Take that, Christie Whitman.
"Yes, the odds of encountering a "killer" bear are quite low...
How low? According to the author:
"That means that over the course of the last decade I've been fortunate enough to have seen close to 15,000 black bears. Of those, perhaps one third have seen, smelled or heard me. Out of that number (approximately 5,000 black bears), I've encountered only two that were, beyond any doubt and without provocation, stalking me. "
2 out of 5000. The one story about the man et by a bear he could come up with in his neck of the woods, was about a guy that fell off his horse. Like a farmer falling into his sty.
I subscribe to Fur, Fish and Game, not Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. I live in the woods. It's not a hobby interest as in O.L, or S.A.
My direct experience was in N.W. Ontario, where I not only showed their DNR that there wolves where after their expert surveys had found none. I brought them to the spots where the wolves had come after they left to piss on the ground they stood on and brought them to a spot where they could see them do it. The bears are all over, but not where people were, unless they were successful in getting their food/garbage. What I could do is stalk them and get their pic. Something the pros consider damn near impossible. That's because they know the bears don't like people and none of the outfiters could get close, unless the bears were at the dump. For the bears in uninhabited Queen's land they had to make their own dumps to see them. I just take out a topo and go directly. Absolutely none of those folks would agree black bears stalk humans for dinner. The only people that do think that are folks that don't live with them.
The only time confrontation occurs is when folks feed them and get in their way afterwards, or as I indicated above. They're not after the human, they're after his food.
Bush pigs eat berries, insects(mostly ants), larva, carrion and other incapacitated things, rodents. They don't stalk and kill. Biologists and other folks that study them know this. If they stalked and ate people thy'd have tried it with me, since I was the only human within a hundred miles and I had plenty of bacon, ham, fish ect. There's a pic of a mink on my desk right now, that sat on a tree 2ft away, and begged for some fish. That pic was taken at the blueberry estate property of a ~300 lb bush pig I took my ~7y/o daughter to see. We camped alongside his berry patches for a week. Somewhere I have pics of him and the mama moose that lived there with her calf.
See that face on my belt on my home page? That was taken with a hickory stick and my own points. He thought he was stalking rabbits, 'till I said boo. The pants are smoked brain tan, from a couple of tasty deer.
I've seen males fight a couple of times. They are fast! They don't give a hoot if they get smacked in the nose by another bear! They go at it hard, until one backs down. A 105 lb 18 y/o female ain't going to drive a hungry 400 lb male bush pig off with an elbow to the nose if their intent is dinner.
I've seen, or heard most of the stories. Bush pigs do not stalk people and do not consider them food. They might chew and eat after an attack, but the attack is not driven by the bear's consideration of them as food. Polar bears are the only one's that do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.