They're Getting Smarter....

jgcoastie wrote: "You'll argue that the bear couldn't have known any better, but I argue the exact opposite." Yeah, I guess you're right. Them silly bears have been around long enough to learn the rules by now.
 
fourdogs wrote: "Yah, the guy forgets to close his garage door and a bear gets killed....VERY PATHETIC. You mindless individuals who think killing animals for fun and games is acceptable are the lowest form of life on this planet. Sadly I was once one of you. I was taught in Vietnam that life is cheap....all life, but I woke up and got smart."

Legitimate sport hunting is one thing but wasting an animal's life just because some guy cannot remember to close his door is indeed pathetic. When I was a kid it seemed legitimate to kill any animal that was available to be killed (except grandpa's farm animals!). However, as I grew older I developed a respect for living creatures that does not allow me to engage in wanton distruction of animals nor to be careless about my security insuring an animal will have to be killed for my protection.
 
Hey, that bear attacked a human, got the taste of blood in his mouth and got away with it. You want to be the next one to meet Horatio the pacifist bear in the woods?

We all make mistakes, this homeowner won't make that one again. Bear was in wrong place at wrong time and should have got the dickens out of there post haste. he didn't, price was steep but it would not have done the bear any favors to let him get away with it either.
 
I find 2 things pretty hilarious here. Most say a shotgun with a slug and yet no one uses them to go bear hunting. Why not if thry are SO effective. Secondly, most here give a large caliber handgun not much credit at all to speak of. If a 454 Casull, 460 Smith or 500 Smith is capable of droping an African Cape Buffalo at 110 yards with one shot then i think they are fully capable of droping a bear half that size. Come on guys, seriously. Get one of these and shot a bear then tell me how ineffective they were. There are simply to many accounts of these large caliber handguns doing the job to ignore them. I realize you just can't stand the idea of a handgun performing like your rifle but facts are facts. If you don't believe me then maybe you will believe this guy.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BTT/is_158_26/ai_86704793/
 
Most say a shotgun with a slug and yet no one uses them to go bear hunting. Why not if thry are SO effective.
Maybe it's because we're talking "up close and personal" (inside the house ranges) in this situation. I'm reasonably confident that nobody in their right mind closes at less than 20 yards to shoot a bear while hunting so people intentionally hunting bears tend to go for rifles with a little more range. :rolleyes:

If a 454 Casull, 460 Smith or 500 Smith is capable of droping an African Cape Buffalo at 110 yards with one shot then i think they are fully capable of droping a bear half that size.
You have a good point in the theoretical "any gun is available to you" scenario, but speaking realistically about what I might have in the house eliminates a lot of guns. Having fired a full-house 460 Smith load a couple of times I can tell you that it's absolutely NOT going to be my choice of what to fire at anything so I'm not discounting what such a big bore pistol is capable of, but it's just not something that will be in my lineup...ever.

That was an interesting article to read though.
 
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:D
I find 2 things pretty hilarious here. Most say a shotgun with a slug and yet no one uses them to go bear hunting. Why not if thry are SO effective. Secondly, most here give a large caliber handgun not much credit at all to speak of. If a 454 Casull, 460 Smith or 500 Smith is capable of droping an African Cape Buffalo at 110 yards with one shot then i think they are fully capable of droping a bear half that size. Come on guys, seriously. Get one of these and shot a bear then tell me how ineffective they were. There are simply to many accounts of these large caliber handguns doing the job to ignore them. I realize you just can't stand the idea of a handgun performing like your rifle but facts are facts. If you don't believe me then maybe you will believe this guy.
Nobody? Let me introduce you to my Great Grandfather who owned 1 gun and it now sits in my gun rack, still used by me but not often. Single shot 12 gauge with reloaded black powder shells he shot pheasant, quail, deer, downed horses and cattle, a buffalo and a bear with that gun. (black bear not grizzly), not to many grizzlies in North and South Dakota in the 90's, 1890's that is.

Most farmers and a lot of the town people when I was a kid in northern Wisconsin carried shotguns or 30-30's. Wolves, bear, deer moose, turkey, they all fell to those shotguns. Then the big war ended and suddenly everybody was snatching up cheap surplus 30-06's. Didn't stop the shotgun from being a good all around weapon and modern ammo with better barrels and chokes just makes them that much more efficient.

I don't shoot full loads in his gun because it kicks the snot out of me. He was a tough old Bohunk. If push came to shove and I had to use that old gun I am confident it would still do the job. Bears still aren't bullet proof and slugs still make a large deep hole. I don't have a .416 Rigby around the house and I can get to my slugs a lot quicker than I can my 300 Wby ammo. Guess which one I would grab?

Besides as much boom as that shotgun makes it's nothing compared to a magnum centerfire. :eek:
 
If a 454 Casull, 460 Smith or 500 Smith is capable of droping an African Cape Buffalo at 110 yards with one shot then i think they are fully capable of droping a bear half that size.

Sure. You go shoot a 500 - or even worse a 460 in your house at night, and tell us how that treated your senses. A 12-gauge won't necessarily knock all the pictures off your walls either.
 
Yah, the guy forgets to close his garage door and a bear gets killed....VERY PATHETIC. You mindless individuals who think killing animals for fun and games is acceptable are the lowest form of life on this planet. Sadly I was once one of you. I was taught in Vietnam that life is cheap....all life, but I woke up and got smart. I have no respect or use for any person who doesn't respect life on this planet. Stop killing, and grow up.

I don't advocate killing for the sake of killing. But lets put ourselves in the same situation. Haven't we all forgotten to do something like close the garage door? Stupid? Yes, but we've all done something like that ourselves. First I'm not going to follow the bear. But at lets say 30 feet away, I think I would be more than just a little nervous. I'm not going to the gun safe and carefully selecting my firearm then looking for the ammo either. I'm looking for the biggest LOADED weapon I can find. Remember the bear is in MY house and so is the rest of my family. How many here have shot a deer and had to track him down after the shot? If you do that with a bear in a box, do you think he will not express his anger? Remember he is only 30 feet away. We don't have time for anger management classes for him. If it comes to the choice of him or me (and my family), I want to be the one telling the story. It is a win, lose choice at best but if I lose so does he.
 
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Since some may have overlooked my earlier point, here is the relevant paragraph from the article.

"Munson became just the third person killed by a bear in Colorado in the past century, according to the state the Division of Wildlife."

One would think that Colorado qualifies as "bear country", and 3 deaths in the course of approx.50 years (the length of time that the DOW has been tracking human-bear encounters) is actually a remarkably small number, considering the amount of shared (man and animal) territory in our state.

The original article described the death of an Ouray woman who had apparently been feeding bears at her home for years.

Our neighborhood (rather rural) has a bear that returns every fall, most likely during his migration to his winter resting spot. He was particularly bothersome last fall, tarrying in our neighborhood for weeks and upsetting many garbage cans (After that, most neighbors contracted for a "bear-proof" can from our waste-disposal company - a simple additional latch on a standard can.)

During that time of the year, we simply keep our doors closed and scan the yard before letting the child or doggies outside. No food is left in our yard, and we remove our hummingbird feeder. Actually, we are more concerned with mountain lions, because they are truly predatory.

A bit of wisdom I learned years ago from some wranglers in the Yellowstone area: How do you tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear? If the bear is up a tree, it's a black bear, and if you are up the tree, it's a grizzly bear. Maybe a bit too nonchalant, but instructive nevertheless.


Here is a link to a site with some interesting facts:

http://www.americanbear.org/blackbearfacts.htm


If we ever do find a bear in our house, we plan to exit the house in the opposite direction. We have lots of doors and windows.

Monty
 
My FIL shot a bear this spring, he really didn't want to, but he scared it off his porch 4 times and after numerous calls to the wardens and no response the fifth time the bear started pushing on the house door. Unluckily for the bear, the door popped open and he got a case of 20 guage lead poisoning. The warden finally shows up 2 hours later and starts to berate him for shooting the bear, until my fil pointed out the tag on him showing he was a problem bear that had been relocated from another part of the state. At 71 years old and bad knees I'm pretty sure he made the right choice.
 
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