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There’s a viral trend on TikTok that got started with a seemingly simple question: Would women rather run into a bear or a man in the woods? Now people are discussing the fact that a lot of women have admitted to preferring the bear. USA Today reports how this debate — simply referred to as “Man vs. Bear” — is said to have been started by TikTok account, Screenshot HQ, who posted a video of women being asked this question seemingly around the United Kingdom about a week or so ago. By the end of the video, all the woman...

The “Five Little Ducks” were met with a grizzly end. A zoo bear named Juniper shocked guests at a girl’s birthday party after devouring ducklings that had landed in its enclosure, as seen in a video with over 2 million views on TikTok. “A #natgeo trainwreck for my daughters’ birthday, thanks JUNIPER,” mother Rachelle captioned the clip of the impromptu feeding. She and her fellow revelers, which comprised both adults and children, had reportedly been celebrating her daughter’s birthday at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. The bash took a turn when the party-goers stopped by the bear exhibit...

Attempting to quantify the effectiveness of defensive methods for use against bears suffers from significant selection bias. It is impractical to enlist large numbers of volunteers, randomly select half, give half a method of protection, leave the others as a control group, and place both in equal chances of being attacked. Instead, we rely on gathering data from people who were attacked and who had various types of defensive weapons. Obtaining a valid sample is nearly impossible because successful defenses have a strong bias of not being reported. The more spectacularly a defense fails, the more likely it is to...

April 12 (UPI) -- The Florida Highway Patrol posted security camera footage showing a hungry bear attempting to break into a parked patrol car. The FHP's Troop F, based in the southwest part of the state, posted a video to Instagram showing the furry suspect who is "wanted" for "attempted burglary of [an] FHP state trooper car." The footage shows the bear, apparently on the hunt for snacks, approach the parked vehicle and attempt to use its mouth and paws to work the door handle. The attempted break-in by the bear, nicknamed "Teddy" by the FHP, was ultimately unsuccessful, as...

Carrying a gun for defensive purposes, with an empty chamber, is a controversial measure which proponents claim enhances safety. It is one of the reasons handguns appear to work better for self defense against bears than long guns. Long guns are more commonly carried with an empty chamber than are handguns. Handguns are more commonly carried for self defense than long guns. A recent bear attack illustrates the problem of carrying a long gun with an empty chamber. From Alaskapublic.org 2021: “I remember looking over my shoulder, and I was saying something to them when I kind of heard the...

James Albert Maierle was a well-known educator and sportsman born in 1942 in Calumet, Michigan. He was an enthusiastic hunter, fisherman, and woodsman. He is well known in his local area and published a few stories in hunting magazines. He died in 2022. His son related the circumstances of his father’s shooting of a black bear in self-defense in the early 1960s on the Montreal River in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The location is only a few miles from where Maierle grew up. The area was pretty wild in the early 1960s. After the major copper mine shut down...

The Biden administration's plan to relocate grizzly bear populations to rural parts of Washington State will have a devastating impact on agriculture and livestock in the region while posing a significant danger to local communities, a fifth generation cattle producer warned. Residents of Washington State are doubling down on their concerns surrounding the federal government's plan to translocate grizzly bears, an apex predator, to the federally-managed North Cascades National Park, after the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the strategy their preferred plan for grizzly bear management in the region. The North Cascades National Park borders...

One of the persistent myths about shooting bears in self-defense is a bear’s skull is nearly bulletproof. Bears skulls are not bulletproof. However, bear heads are big. It is easy to miss the brain or spine if you aim at the wrong spot or aim away from the brain because you are afraid the bullet will “bounce off.” This is exacerbated by trophy hunters’ hesitancy to shoot a bear in the head. A powerful shot to the brain cavity will fracture the skull, making measurement for the record books impossible.It is difficult to hit the brain of a bear if...

Two people were hospitalized after being attacked by a bear in Slovakia, officials reported Sunday. The Environment Ministry may propose making the animals easier to hunt to reduce their population. A 49-year-old woman suffered a wound to her shoulder and a 72-year-old man was treated for a gash on his hand from the bear in the town of Liptovsky Mikuláš, emergency services said. Police drove the bear out of town.. A day prior to the latest attack, a 31-year-old Belarussian woman apparently fell to her death trying to escape a brown bear in the nearby Low Tatra mountains. She and...

A Pennsylvania woman is recovering in a hospital after a vicious assault by a mother bear .. The incident reportedly took place around 8:30 p.m. just outside the victim’s house. Lee Ann Galante, 55, stepped out to let her dog, a small black Pomeranian, enjoy the backyard, ... With injuries across her arm, face, neck and head, Galante’s condition necessitated urgent medical attention, police said,.. She was rushed to the nearby hospital following the attack ... "I thought I was going to die." A woman who was hospitalized after being mauled . ... Galante shared her ordeal from her hospital...

Japanese officials found the body of a missing student alongside the corpse of a brown bear that likely killed him. The bear is also suspected of attacking several other people in the area.The body of a missing student in Japan has been found alongside the corpse of a bear that likely killed him. The bear is linked to a string of other attacks in the area and follows a trend of increased bear attacks in the country this year. On Nov. 2, police found human remains on Mount Daisengen near Fukushima in Hokkaido island. DNA analysis revealed that the remains...

On February 21, 2024, the Florida Senate amended and passed HB 87. The bill allows people threatened by bears to use deadly force to protect themselves when they reasonably believe a bear is a danger to themselves, others, or their pets or is causing significant damage to their dwelling. The bill has already passed the House. The changes made in the Senate are not large. It seems likely the bill will end up on Governor DeSantis’ desk and be signed into law. Floridians had the authority to protect themselves and their property from bears until the Florida Fish & Wildlife...

On February 15, 2024, the Florida House passed CS/HB 87: Taking of Bears. The bill passed 88 to 29. It will now be sent to the Florida Senate. The bill has been prompted by a burgeoning black bear population in Florida, which has increased exponentially from 300 – 500 bears in 1974 to 2,650 in 2002 to an estimated 4,350 in 2016. No official population estimate has been made for eight years. The bear population increased 60% from 2002 to 2014/15. If the trend continues into 2024, the black bear population will be estimated at over 6,000. Cubs are not...

Spain’s Iberian brown bear population, which was once almost extinct, has made such a strong recovery that a ranger patrol was set up to deter them from roaming into small villages in the country’s north. The regional government of Castile and Leon arranged for the patrol, which consists of nine rangers, to guard residents and their crops in the mining town of Villablino and the surrounding area, in the province of Palencia, ... bear can weigh from 330 to 550 pounds and stand over 6.5 feet tall, ... Angeles Orallo, 73, has been attempting to keep the bears away from...

Connecticut has passed a law allowing bears to be shot if they are or are about to injure people or pets or enter a building occupied by people. Florida is considering a similar but broader measure.As black bear populations have increased across the United States, more people and bear conflicts are occurring. Before 1960, bears had been considered a problem to be taken care of. In most states, they could be shot as pests. There was a legacy understanding – bears make for bad neighbors. Bears would kill your pigs, destroy your apple orchards, and your bee hives. Before 1950,...

On December 18, 2017, the Canadian Province of British Columbia banned hunting of grizzly bears, except by indigenous tribes. It appears to be a natural experiment that will help determine the effects of grizzly bear hunting practices. Tribes known as “First Nations” are allowed to kill bears. The exact effect of the ban is not clear or precise. Taltan hunters still hunt the bears, but they are not killing enough of them. But when the B.C. government banned the grizzly bear trophy hunt in 2017, the system was thrown out of whack. While the Tahltan could still hunt for food,...

A video of a polar bear attack which was repelled with a couple of long sticks or pipes has been popping up, on and off, for a few years. It seems to have first appeared in 2020. Some sites claim the event happened in Quebec, Canada. Any help in identifying the location and person/people involved would be appreciated. The video is 12 seconds long.The site in the video seems to be a research station of some type. There is an antenna mast, probably for communication, a rectangular shelter with a door at the corner, and what may be an instrument...

In the debate about effective defense methods against aggressive bears, some people claim extreme speed and accuracy are essential to stopping a bear attack with firearms. Here are some quotes.From Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska:The need for split-second deployment and deadly accuracy make using firearms difficult, even for experts.From cowboystatedaily.com: Many experts seem to favor bear spray. One drawback of firearms they cite is the inability of many shooters to make accurate, quick-kill shots under the extreme stress of a bear attack. From backcountrychronicles.com:If you shoot something as big as a grizzly bear and are not lucky...

Bears have killed nine times as many people when bear spray is sprayed than when handguns are fired in defense against bears. Fatal bear attacks are rare and make the news. Powerful cartridge handguns became popular and relatively easily available about 1873. Bear spray became available in 1985. The ability to learn about and report fatal bear attacks has expanded enormously since 1960.Data which are nearly impossible to obtain are:How many times are bears sprayed with bear spray?How many times are handguns fired in defense against bears?How many times are firearms generally fired in defense against bears?What percentage of human/bear...

On Sunday, March 24, 2013, a determined polar bear made a fatal error in the prey selection process. The six-year-old healthy male would not be deterred from getting at two humans in a cabin located on Svalbard (administered by Norway) at Hornsund on the island of Spitsbergen. Hornsund is the most southern fjord on the southern tip of the Island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, about 140 km south of Longyearbyen.The incident was reported in newsinenglish.no in 2013. The incident is confirmed in the PBHIMS database obtained by AmmoLand, which includes many reports of polar bear attacks that happened...