Yep, I hang my food in a dry bag, but I’ve spent 20 minutes trying to get a line up over a tree branch. It’s never like those simple diagrams where you find a branch out 10 feet, and there are always twigs and branches running interference, line refusing to drop on the other side, I even bounced my weight back to my noggin a few times. If someone took a video of my attempts it would probably go viral.
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That is painful to watch…well more so to listen to! I turned off the volume. I would have run down and used my bear spray. This woman sounds like a wounded animal in distress…it appears she would have been in a far worse situation, had she not had the pepper spray.
I think being the aggressor toward the bear (I.e. charging him) isn’t a brilliant idea. While making yourself appear large, making loud noises, etc may work, bears are keenly aware (probably more so than humans) to charges, bluffs and fakery. I’d guess the average bear might not always be too impressed by humans’ weak attempts at acting tough. Especially if the bear has been acclimatized to humans.
Like humans some bears are more cautious than others. And some bears are the equivalent of big honey badgers. When she sprayed in its direction, that bear didn’t seem terribly upset. It certainly didn’t scamper off into the woods. Went right back to playing with her boat. Sure looked to me like the bear gave her a big f*** you.
How much did she use of the 8-10 seconds or so of bear spray? What if the bear thought, “I can’t take that shrill voice anymore. She’s goin’ down.” Odds are the average human now in a red hot panic because the bear is really pissed off and charging, will start firing what’s left of bear spray before it is in range. Then what?
In New York state many of the camp sites now use stationary bear boxes. Many bears learned long ago how to get hanging drybags down.
I know from experience they even know how to open car doors here…
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This is in remote Alaska. These bears mostly know little about humans. Everyone is using their experience with habituated bears as a point of reference. It is likely this bear does not know much about humans. It is one of the reasons he is so hard to get rid of.
Plenty of people panic in the presence of bears, including most of the people on this site. This lady is doing her best, so it is best not to mock her attempts to get rid of the bear.
It appears that she wasn’t close enough when she sprayed the bear, so the spray was not at all effective. But then there is that die-ing rabbit quality to her voice {like fingernails on a chalk board.
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I’ve seen video of a bear tearing the roof off a car in a place where it is very clearly stated not to leave food in vehicles. People gonna people.
As a kid visiting Yosemite (long before it turned into a take-a-number theme park), I have one of those vivid kid memories of watching a Mama bear remove the trunk of an unoccupied Plymouth without bothering to open the latch first. There was a bag of apples inside which she thought her two cubs should have. Done deal.
Best to give all bears a wide berth, IMO, whether habituated to humans or not.
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This is how a gangster’s wife deals with a black bear…
My mother ran two black bears off years ago using frying pans like that while cooking breakfast in the Smokies Natl Park.
I was sleeping out in my hammock last summer near the cabin when I woke around 5AM to some shuffling outside. Looked out and saw a juvenile black bear creeping up next to one of my trees. There I am, a helpless burrito just hanging there and all I could think to do is yell, “Hey, get out of here! Git! Git!” Well it worked. Bear was surprised to see the burrito come to life and ambled off down the lake trail.
Northern MN. Not the first time I’ve seen bear up there, but that’s the closest I’ve been to one. Don’t think I’d stand for one eating my yak.
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Maybe northern MN / BWCA bears haven’t yet learned the yumminess of an artfully crafted burrito. Especially one that yells “Git”!
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My German grandmother chased after a black bear with a frying pan and recovered the bag of groceries it had stolen from their cabin. Animals are smart. Tangling with an angry, determined mother is a bad idea.
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