Bear Attack

D

deanf

New member
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpnt15.htm

I wonder if the father wishes he had a gun.

Note the statistic in the last paragraph. I wonder if WI has passed a no bait/no hound bear hunting law in the past few years.

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“The whole of the Bill (of Rights) is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. ... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.” -Alexander Addison, 1789
 
I think the link has been changed. It's now a story about the shooting at the Jewish community center.

-boing
 
I knew I should have "cutted and pasted" but there's that nasty little warning at the bottom of the articles.
 
AUGUST 10, 01:27 EDT

Boy Attacked by Bear at Scout Camp


SHELL LAKE, Wis. (AP) — A black bear attacked a 14-year-old boy at a Boy Scout camp, dragging him into the woods and injuring him before
his father drove the animal off by pelting him with rocks and wood.

Matthew Murphy, 14, had bite wounds to his head and shoulder area and was in serious condition at a hospital after Monday's attack. He is
expected to make a full recovery, the family said.

A search was on for the bear, which will be destroyed if found.

The boy was attacked at 6:30 a.m. Monday at the Tomahawk Scout Reservation on Long Lake in northwestern Wisconsin.

The bear dragged both boy and tent into the woods. The boy's father, Anthony Murphy, threw a rock at the bear, which ran off but then came
after him.

The father then threw a block of wood at the bear, and it climbed part up a tree, allowing the the boy to be rescued from the tent.

Candy wrappers were found in the tent, but officials did not know if that was related to the attack.

Ken Jonas, the wildlife biologist investigating the attack, said the incident was peculiar: ``We normally don't get bears that attack people, and
certainly not in this manner.''

Wildlife wardens on Monday patrolled the camp to protect the 800 campers, many from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Camp fires were also lit for
the night.

The camp has gotten about 40 calls from concerned parents, but no requests to pull children from the camp, said Jeff Sulzbach, director for
Tomahawk Scout Reservation.

Bear populations have increased to about 14,000 in Wisconsin, from the 5,850 estimated to be in the state in 1985.
 
Yep, Dad should'a been armed, BUT...

Sounds like he did okay once the SHTF.

Once again, this underscores that you should be prepared before venturing forth. In this case, the boy needed to be properly instructed with regard to keeping edibles out of his tent in bear country. Back when I was a Boy Sprout, that was HEAVILY stressed.

'Smatter of fact, I went to Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, NM the year after a couple of boys were killed by a rogue bear, and they were obsessed with instructing us to keep any perfumes/colognes out of our kits, all food hung up between trees at night, and likewise trash. When they finally shot the rogue bear the year before, they positively I.D.'d him by the bits of Boy Scout under his nails. (ugh.)

[This message has been edited by Long Path (edited August 12, 1999).]
 
A couple of years back, a pretty 15 year old girl was attacked and mauled by a black bear on Mt. Lemmon. It was some kind of camp deal for a group of kids. Anyway, one of the counselors had a .44 mag. in his back pack. He probably saved that young lady's life. The big problem up there, is the local residents were constantly feeding the bears and they had lost all fear of humans.
BTW. The girls family sued the AZ Game and Fish Dept. and the State of Arizona. The settlement was unspecified, but substantial. I don't know what the actual grounds were but they won.
Paul B.
 
I'm Sorry but 200 pound black bear, 2000 pound brown, I don't care, if it has my kid it just wrote a check his A** can't cash...

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---snoman---
 
Heres another cut and paste from yet another recent bear attack on a kid.

Anchorage Daily News © Copyright 1985-1999 - Anchorage Daily News. Error! Bookmark not defined. this article
Tuesday, June 22, 1999
Page: B3

GRIZZLY ATTACKS BOY, 14
The Associated Press

Juneau ---A 14-year-old Hoonah boy attacked by a brown bear over the weekend suffered more than 30 wounds, including a fractured skull.Cody Mills was in stable condition Monday at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. The boy has too many stitches to count but may be released today, said his mother, Eileen Hunter.The bear attacked the teenager early Saturday evening as he walked on a trail to a friend's house, said Sgt. William Mills of the Hoonah Police Department. The boy told police he tried to defend himself with a pocket knife.
"He's out for revenge. ... You can say that," Hunter said. "He was able to run and get help himself. He said he stabbed (the bear) two times."Cody Mills told his mother that the bear attacked him once, walked away and came back to renew the mauling as another bear looked on from nearby bushes.Sgt. Mills, the boy's cousin, said the bears may have been two young adults or a sow and a cub. Efforts to identify the animals have turned up no suspects, and an all-out search is impractical given the relatively large brown bear population around Hoonah."This is the first time we've had a bear problem this year," Sgt. Mills said, adding that the mauling was the first he had seen in his seven years on the police force.After the attack, the boy was flown to Juneau, where surgeons at Bartlett Regional Hospital operated for three hours before he was taken to Anchorage.

Our young friend has a huge set of gonads eh? This happened in late June and I called the Hoonah PD and got an update. Young Cody was most upset that he'd apparently left his knife sticking in the bear and lost it. We took up a collection at work and bought him a limited edition Case "Kodiak" knife and sent it on to him. They raise them tough down there in Hoonah!




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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
The boy told police he tried to defend himself with a pocket knife.

Like you said, Keith, nads out to there. Brains, though... methinks poking a brown with a pocketknife would just piss it off more.

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A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.
Vote Libertarian - For A Change.
 
That poor kid at the Scout camp messed up. We stress to our boys never, ever have food in your tent. Yes indeed these animals have gotten used to humans and don't fear us at all.
And it ain't just bears, Racoons, skunks and possum have been known to walk right into a crowded camp to get a snack. They might not kill ya, but they can sure do some serious damage.
 
Coinneach,

I doubt theres a "right" thing to do when being attacked by a bear. In this case, with this bear, he actually drove it off and survived.
The advise is always to "play dead" but theres an awful lot of people that have tried that and been eaten alive. Theres a young lady up in Fairbanks named Cynthia Dusel-Bacon that played dead while a bear ate her breasts, forearms, buttocks and much of her upper legs. Somebody with a gun showed up and drove it off. Can you imagine? She was conscious through all of that and playing dead.
Words fail me, carry a gun in bear country.


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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
at what point while being eaten by a bear does a pacifist decide to fight?

sorta seems like a good story for RKBA
which gun law is your left breast?

dZ
 
Keith, if there was ever a question in my mind, then you have set me on the correct path of resistance. That is an incredibly disgusting story. What a shame.

And, when someone mentioned keeping 'edibles' out of tents, I was going to kid about boy scouts being edibles in tents. Then we had a real life example. Being a former boy scout, I can identify with some of these stories. The biggest gun they allowed us was a .22 rifle.

So, a question - 'red zone' style. You are hiking with friends, and perhaps you're second in line. You're the only one armed (OK, so they're not close friends ;) ). The fellow in the lead rounds a bend, and is immediately set upon by a large bear. He is screaming, and he and the bear are rolling around on the ground in a blur. Now, do what?

My first thought would be to:
1. Tell the others in my party to run the other direction (if that is even necessary).
2. Fire the pistol into the air, and throw rocks at the bear to try to get it off the friend.
3. If the bear does come off the friend, and then attacks me, try to step to one side or the other, so that when I fire my friend is not directly behind the target.

Of course, this is easier to consider now, at my friendly keyboard. ;) Would a bear likely pull off with this kind of abuse? Any experienced / knowledgeable hands have advice? I'm not saying I'd watch a friend become dinner, but it seems insane to try to shoot the bear while they are grappling, and it seems equally insane to get within striking distance of the bear.

We've discussed calibers in the past, but I don't recall specifically addressing 'tactics'.

Regards from AZ
 
luckly the bear is kinda hardwired for tactics

it is an animal
this is why the Masai can kill adult lions with spears

from what i have read they tend to lock on a target and rend it apart

if it is already grappling your Buddy then a shot in the air may make it pause
it might make it drop target 1 and aquire target 2

here some interesting fallout from Bear protection:
http://www.corp.direct.ca/cabc/8HbCo.html
"Grizzly bears probably did not include people in their normal 'prey search image', even before modern firearms were developed and even though once dead a person would be high quality
food.Why? One possible answer is that most bears who hunted people were themselves killed by groups of primitive human hunters. A bear might kill one person, but then die from wounds inflicted
by others of a hunting band. Man, the highly social omnivorous predator, even before the advent of modern firearms, at least reached a balance of power with the larger and stronger, yet less social
and less intelligent, grizzly bear.

However, although they apparently seldom preyed on people, grizzly bears may have been generally more aggressive toward people before the introduction of effective firearms. Some readers of
Lewis and Clark's journals have drawn this conclusion because of the number of charges and attacks mentioned by them (Twaites 1959). This conclusion would be consistent with McArthur-Jope's
(1982) and Nadeau's (1987) findings in Glacier Park, Montana. They showed that the more experience grizzly bears have with people, the less likely they are to confront or attack a person hiking.

Grizzlies encountered by Lewis and Clark's party would have been relatively inexperienced with people compared to grizzlies living today in Banff, Glacier (Montana), or Yellowstone National
Parks.

Since the introduction of modern firearms, very aggressive grizzly bears, for example those that might charge from several hundred metres, have been eliminated. As soon as people had the power,
'selection' began against bears that confronted or attacked people. Today most grizzly bears are tolerant of people (Herrero 1985).

Until recently, in certain national parks, individual bears had little opportunity to learn to exploit people or their foods. Those that did, usually died. Recently, however, with the creation of protected
bear populations, the increase in camping and hiking as recreational pastimes, and the greater availability of people's food or garbage, the contingencies attached to some actions toward people
and their foods have changed. I suggest that human actions have probably created new opportunities for the expression of aggression by grizzly bears, as well as encouraged other undesirable
bear behaviour."
http://www.boreasbackcountry.com/polaris/bear/attack.htm http://www.ajana.com/bear_attack.html

you guys have heard of Troy Hurtubise & Project Grizzly haven't ya? http://www.nfb.ca/E/4/grizzly.html http://www.nfb.ca/E/4/suit.html http://getreel.ican.net/reviews/grizzly.html

[This message has been edited by dZ (edited August 19, 1999).]
 
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