Fogbow

The best strategy is to never get in harm’s way by enticing or provoking a wild bear. Trying to give a bear food or approaching cute cubs are particularly terrible ways to start an encounter. That’s just looking for trouble.

The US National Park Service site points out each bear and each encounter is different, but there are general guidelines useful in most situations.

First of all, keep your distance if you happen upon a bear. Don’t approach it, and give it plenty of room to walk away from you. Yellowstone tells you to stay at least 100 yards (300 feet or 91 meters) away; Shenandoah National Park in Virginia suggests 200 feet (61 meters) for its black bears.

You can run afoul of the law as well as the bears if you get too close and end up paying a fine.

Other tips:

• Talk calmly to yourself in low tones to identify yourself as human.

• Walk with a group (we’re smellier and noisier in packs) and stay on designated trails.

• If you have a small child or dog, pick it up.

• Don’t put yourself between cubs and their mother.

• Avoid direct eye contact and move away slowly, sideways if possible.

Pratt said don’t be alarmed if a bear stands on its hind legs; it’s not considered an aggressive move.

Almost all encounters are peaceful, Pratt said. Many times, people never knew they were even close to a bear.

What if a bear starts coming at you anyway?
If a bear starts making assertive moves in your direction, you have important decisions to make – and fast.

First thing is: Stand your ground with bears.

With either grizzlies (a subspecies of brown bears) or black bears, “please don’t run. Bears can outrun anybody,” Pratt said. “Don’t climb a tree either. They can also climb trees better than you.”

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Wildlife (where the black bear population is growing) also has some tips:

• Make loud noises by yelling, banging pots and pans or using an airhorn to scare bears away.

• Make yourself look as large as possible by waving your arms.

• If you’re with other people, stay together.

Pratt said you can usually intimidate or bluff your way out of sticky bear situations, depending on the bear species and the situation.

But what if a bear is about to attack?
You’re now in the rarest of situations – you’ve attracted a bear’s attention. It didn’t move off. It’s started coming at you aggressively and fast. You think you’re about to be attacked. What’s next?

One very crucial thing is to make a quick ID of the kind of bear, because your strategy is going to be different.

If it’s a black bear, the NPS and Pratt have a clear message: Do not run. Do not play dead.

“You want to stand your ground with black bears. Look as intimidating as possible,” Pratt said. “Throw things not at it but near it. Make that black bear intimidated by you. Let it know you are a big person. Pick something up; yell at it. If it attacks, fight back – aim for the face.”

It’s a different situation with grizzlies
If you’re dealing with a grizzly that won’t back off and an attack is imminent, you’re advised to do the opposite. You should play dead.

“Act as unthreatening as possible with a grizzly. Play dead with a grizzly if it starts to attack,” Pratt said. “Tuck and cover. Get into a fetal position. Wrap your hands around your neck. Lay on your stomach. Once you do that, 99 percent of the time the grizzly will move on.”

NPS elaborates: “Remain still until the bear leaves the area. Fighting back usually increases the intensity of such attacks. However, if the attack persists, fight back vigorously.”

Fighting back a grizzly bear is the last resort – “your Hail Mary pass” as Pratt called it – when all other options are out.

An exception to this rule: If you’re camping in a tent and are attacked, that bear likely sees you as food. NPS and Pratt say this is a time to fight.

Volkonski wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:33 am Number 2-

Cats are crepuscular. They want to be most active during twilight hours.

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:39 am We had just come off climbing a glacier in Wrangell Elias National Park in the early 2000s when we spotted a huge bear about twelve feet away. The guide told us to stay still, stay together, and do NOT under any circumstances run. He was busy eating berries, moving the other direction downhill. She assured us he knew we were there.

p0rtia wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:37 am

Volkonski wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 11:33 am Number 2-

Cats are crepuscular. They want to be most active during twilight hours.

As are bears.

And deer.

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 12:48 pm The guide added that if you run, don't just worry about the bear. She would then come after you next.

Wasn't so funny at the time.

Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:33 am “A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

Douglas Adams

northland10 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:42 am

Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:33 am “A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

Douglas Adams

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:40 pm

Can't read the second word in the second line.

food?

Frood is a common slang word that means someone who is “really amazingly together,” and is an intensified version of "hoopy".

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:40 pm

Can't read the second word in the second line.

food?

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:54 pm Ah, so again I am exposed as a non-HHGG fan.

Foggy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:40 pm

Can't read the second word in the second line.

food?

Frood: n“Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."
(Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:38 pm

northland10 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:42 am

Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:33 am “A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

Douglas Adams

Just in case you have doubts, I have it on good authority that I know something about proper employment of towels:

20230621_123143a.jpg