Free Republic

One of the significant advantages of using handguns to defend against bear attacks is that defense with a handgun is far more likely to result in a dead bear. This is a highly desirable result. Bears that attack humans should be killed. Killing aggressive bears is a way to condition the bear population to avoid humans.The false premise implicit in the argument for non-lethal defenses against bears is that there are such small numbers of bears that killing a bear removes a valuable resource from the bear genetic pool. This view had some legitimacy about 1975-1980, when the population of...

Two fatal bear attacks occurred in Arkansas in 2025. The first attack occurred on September 3, 2025, near the Mulberry Mountain area of north-west Arkansas. The second attack happened on October 1st or 2nd, near the Sam’s Throne campground near Mount Judea. The two attacks happened in or on the edge of the Ozark National Forest, about 45 miles apart.The last fatal bear attack recorded in Arkansas occurred in 1892, as reported from the May 10 edition of the Arkansas Democrat. From aktimes.com:Mountain Home, Ark., May 10 — Mrs. Mary Carter, a widow, with a small family of children, is...

The use of handguns to defend against bear attacks has been shown to be effective 98% of the time. This update details 16 more cases where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear or bears. In this study, all cases where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear are included. This guards against selection bias. Every case is described in detail, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. If researchers refuse to disclose the data used to support their papers, it detracts from the validity of the conclusions. Extreme accuracy or speed with handguns does not...

On October 8, 2025, an 82-year-old woman was attacked by an Asiatic black bear in the city of Daisen in Akita Prefecture, Japan. The attack was caught on video. The bear is presumed to be an Asiatic black bear because the brown bears (Ursus Arctos) in Japan are limited to the northern island of Hokkaido. Daisen and Akita prefectures are not in Hokkaido. Akita prefecture is on the largest of the Japanese islands, Honshu. Honshu has a significant population of Asiatic black bears. From the bear’s actions, it appears to be a juvenile bear that has not yet perfected its...

Billy Halloran's peaceful trail run in Japan turned into a fight for survivalWhen Billy Halloran set out on a training run in the forest surrounding Myoko, a mountain town in central Japan, one morning in early October, he was expecting little more than a quiet workout among the trees. That changed when he noticed movement in the undergrowth—two Asiatic black bears staring back at him from less than 30 metres away. Bear encounters in Japan have surged this year, with more than a hundred people injured and at least seven killed, the highest toll since tracking began in 2006, as...

Florida is permitting a bear hunt from December 6 to December 28, 2025. The hunt administrators will issue a meager 187 permits for bears, based on a lottery system. A chance to obtain a bear permit will cost $5. There is no limit to the number of chances that can be submitted per person. If someone with $5 million wanted to submit a million lottery chances, they could do so. However, only one win can be used to obtain a permit per person. If a person submits 100 chances and wins five, only one permit will be allowed to that...

A 72-year-old man, Vernon Patton, was working on a gravel road with his tractor when a 70-pound juvenile male black bear attacked him. The attack happened on September 3, 2025, in the Mulberry Mountain area of Arkansas. The attack occurred near Highway 23, just south of the Mulberry Mountain lodge. Vernon’s son came by to check on him. The son saw his father being attacked and drove off the bear by throwing rocks at it. From foxnews.com: A 72-year-old man had to be airlifted to the hospital this week after he was mauled by a 70-pound bear in Arkansas, state...

Homeowner Uses AR-15 to Defend Against Black Bear in Home – VIDEO On August 20, 2025, Mrgunsngear posted a video on X. The video appears to show a homeowner moving downstairs with an AR-15 with a weapon light. The homeowner moves away from the camera, wearing only shorts. He goes through two doorways and nears the far wall. At this point, looking through the doorways, a bear appears to be moving toward him from the left to the right.The homeowner fires seven quick shots, and the bear drops. After the video, an image of a dead bear inside a house...

Scenes of gladiators battling wild beasts before packed crowds in Roman arenas are common in today's popular culture. Ancient written sources record that one animal commonly chosen for these contests was the brown bear (Ursus arctos), though no direct physical evidence of this had ever been found. However, La Brújula Verde reports, a multidisciplinary research team led by Nemanja Marković of Serbia's Institute of Archaeology has recently confirmed that a fragmented animal skull recovered from the Roman city of Viminacium in eastern Serbia belonged to a brown bear that had suffered years in captivity. The animal bone was originally unearthed...

A pair of Cornell University students killed a 120-pound black bear before bringing the carcass back to their dorm, where they skinned and butchered the remains, officials said Thursday. The two undergrads who had “valid New York State hunting licenses killed a bear lawfully over the weekend,” a Cornell spokesperson said in a statement. The students then “brought the animal into a Cornell residence hall for processing on Saturday” before a “police report was made when a complaint was filed late Sunday night,” the school official said, adding that “no charges have been filed.” An investigator with the Department of...

Information released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service shows the number of grizzly bears killed in defense of human life is 5-10 times greater than previously thought.On January 15, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published a proposal to revise the listing of the grizzly bears in the contiguous 48 states. The proposal includes the most complete information on grizzly bear mortality to date.Studies to determine how effective various tools are in defending against grizzly bear attacks suffer from serious selection bias. If the defense is successful and no humans are harmed, the chance of the attack...

The black bear, which the authorities named Fuzzy, caused little damage but cleaned out much of the inventory at a popular parlor on south shore of Lake Tahoe.Early Sunday morning, hours before the first waffle cone of the day was topped with a scoop at an ice cream parlor near the south shore of Lake Tahoe in California, a security guard heard a noise. At first, he thought it was coming from a dumpster behind the parlor at Camp Richardson, a 128-acre resort in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. But when he aimed his flashlight in the container, it was empty....

In 1975, when grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were regulated as “threatened” by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, the standard required to use deadly force against them, in defense of self and others, was unclear. In 2017 and 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit created a binding precedent that clarified the standard to be used when a person claimed defense of self and/or others against grizzly bears in the lower 48 states.The standard is different and lower than the standard to be used for self-defense against humans.From the...

Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A Connecticut woman shared video of a bear that wandered onto her property and ended up beating the heat with a dip in her pool. Theresa Sanderson shared video of the bear swimming laps in the pool behind her Newington home. She said the bear spent several minutes swimming before climbing out of the water and wandering away from her property. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said there have been 51 reported bear sightings in Newington so far this year. An Auburn, Calif., resident shared video in May of a mother bear and...

A Florida man has been arrested for stealing two Smokey the Bear signs from state forests and selling them for $1,900 each on Facebook Marketplace. Reacting to the arrest, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson thanked Smokey the Bear for assisting law enforcement in apprehending the as-yet-unnamed suspect. For context, Simpson criticized the crime and warned potential thieves against targeting state forests, noting the state’s vigorous law enforcement. Florida has invested over $93 million in equipment to preserve its forests and treats them as a high priority. In any case, Simpson began his hilarious announcement with a rhetorical question, asking, “What...

Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A British Columbia woman's home security camera recorded the moment a bear that broke into her house was chased back out by her 6-pound Pomeranian. Kayla Kleine shared security camera footage from her West Vancouver home showing the moment a bear wandered into the house Monday while she had the door propped open for circulation amid high heat The footage shows the bear investigating the home's TV before raiding the breakfast Kleine had put out for her small dog, Scout. Seconds later, Scout comes running out from a side room and chases the bear while barking....

On July 19, 2025, Brett TerBeek and his hunting partner Andy were scouting for a moose hunt in the interior of Alaska. They were 60 miles up a remote river, about 3/4 of a mile from the riverbank toward some high ground.They carried 10 mm Glock model 20 pistols in chest holsters for self-defense. A huge grizzly charged them from 10 yards in thick cover. They stopped the bear at 5 yards with 16 shots of controlled rapid fire.Tyler Freel has been documenting the incident. From outdoorlife.com:Brett told me that as Andy said that, he turned and saw the huge...

On the evening of May 21, 2025, Justin Lee and his brother-in-law, John Long, were charged by a grizzly bear and were forced to shoot it in self-defense.They were hunting for mushrooms along Spring Creek, on a property owned by Justin, a few miles north of Choteau, Montana. Both men are longtime residents of the area. The creek has lots of mature cottonwoods, waist-high dead grass, and a fair amount of brush in some areas. Justin and John drove to the property on a side-by-side four-wheeler. When they were close to the area where mushrooms had been found, they parked...

Conservation officers say trails closed in area after e-bikers attacked by 2 grizzly bears in southeast B.C.A man was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries following a grizzly bear attack near Creston, B.C., officers say. The B.C. Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS) said in a social media post that the attack happened around 4:30 p.m. Saturday when a husband and wife were riding e-bikes along the Kootenay River near West Creston in southeast B.C. The service said the wife heard her husband scream and saw a grizzly bear running at her. She used bear spray and then realized a second bear was attacking...

Romania has the highest brown (grizzly) bear population in the European Union, and the highest number of fatal bear attacks. Russia has many more bears, including more in the European part of Russia, but most Russian bears are in Asia.A study using DNA, which started in 2022 and finished in 2025, is the most accurate measurement of Romanian brown bears. The study shows a brown bear population of between 10,419 and 12,770 in Romania, about twice the previously thought number.In 2021, estimates of the brown (grizzly) bear population ranged from 2,000 to 10,000. From rferl.org in 2021:The official number of...