Alright, let's try this again.
Card is correct, for all intents and purposes, black bears generally don't view humans as food.* Note the word generally. Secondly, bears do get habituated very easily, especially sub-adult males. Meaning, they aren't looking at you as food, but your scent may not mean a rat's a-- to them as a deterrent. Especially if there is an interesting smell of a potential food.---Keep in mind, in most of the western states, bears visit ~50% of all campsites on any given night. Think about how rarely things actually happen. When they do, generally their is something else that initially gets their attention.
Realistically with black bears, you have two types of attacks, Curiosity/Exploratory (C/E) incidents and truly Predatory attacks. Defensive attacks (cornered, sow w/ cubs, etc.) are really a non-factor with black bears. It's a pretty strong misconception with black bears (yes, dig enough, you will find an occasional example).
C/E are the vast majority of attacks. Typically this is a 2-4 year old male, habituated to humans at some level, and is generally well known to the area. Generally, human food/drink and or trash is usually in (or in close proximity) to the sleeping area of the victim. Injuries are almost incidental to the matter. Example, person got stepped on somewhere in the incident. If a person yells and comes up swinging this bear is out of there.
The "other" factor I alluded to above is the "isolated tent". Now this phenomenon is more of a concern in a group camping situation, and high use campgrounds. Loners rarely have this problem. Keep in mind, I said ~50% of all campsites are getting visited by a bear each night. Basically, does your tent stick out in some manner? Your group has 5 tents, 4 are in a line, and the snoring guy is out of line. I can almost guarantee the out of line tent is the one that gets hit. Second way, you have 5 tents, 4 are dome tents and one is an A-frame. Most likely the A-frame is getting popped.---Give me a diagram of a campsite an attack occurred in, and I can probably guess where the attack took place simply on the campsite layout.---Other odd behavior, young bears love dome tents. You knock them down, they stand right back up. They will jump on an empty tent multiple times, just to watch it pop up.
In a C/E incident, food will be the primary driver with "isolated" or interesting (exploratory) being secondary. Often, there is very little or no stealth on the part of the bear. Many times the victim is somewhat awake wondering if someone is playing a joke (and some times aren't sure until they actually make it out of the tent). Simply saying "boo" will likely end this incident.
The Predatory Attack is a different critter all together. This bear is most likely a mature (often REALLY mature, ie old a-- with little to no teeth left), male, that is pretty transitory in nature and will likely be unknown to the area. That is why this one is so unpredictable. Regardless of the food resources around, the sleeping area will almost always be "isolated" in some manner. This bear is stealthy. Big issue for defensive purposes, most victims are already 10-15 feet from their sleeping area when they first realize there is a problem. They generally hit the head and torso first, and immediately start dragging backwards. The bear will have the person by the upper arm, shoulder, or a canine in the ear canal and the lower canine around the jaw of the person (or eye socket and jaw in the case of one of mine). This is why you come up fighting for your life.
As rare as they are, I have been associated with two predatory attacks (ahhh hang Philmonters). In both cases the person was pretty well saved by some pretty heroic actions. Here are a brief synopsis of those incidents.
--July 2000---Usual radio chatter starts about 6:00 AM, nothing pertaining to me (or so I thought), so I turned my radio off. About 10 minutes later, I hear the Program Director running around frantically looking for the Bear Guys. Ok, now I am fully awake. Turns out there has been an incident at Cathedral Rock, and they want us there immediately. Get there, the crew is in shock, my boss is somewhat in shock, blood is everywhere, and we have a dead bear.
Turned out my boss heard the initial radio call, and the camp is about 3 minutes away from his house. When he got there, the bear was still circling the crew and charging the the crew. He sent his border collie after the bear, and went to the crew to make sure where everyone was. As soon as he was clear on everyone, he shot the bear at a run at about 75 yards. The last thing he saw as he took the slack out of the trigger was his dog dart in. He was pretty certain he had shot the dog (he didn't).---He could give a "shot of 270" to just about anything, but his dog bothered him (hippies never did catch on to that code, they thought it was an actual injection).
On to the investigation.....ROCS (Roving Outdoor Conservation School) a long term work crew with staff (why they had a radio). Due to staying in one location for a week, they had a bear box....sleeping area was 60 feet from the closest tent, about 12 feet from the bear box that oddly enough had a cake in it, about 30 feet from the sump, tent was smack in the middle of a game trail parallel to a creek. Victim was wearing the same shirt he cooked in, and had his food dirty shirt folded up under his head (why I recommend separate day and sleeping clothes).
The bear ripped in right next to his head, and immediately grabbed his upper and yanked him out of the tent. This was probably about a 185 lbs 16 yo kid. His tentmate came out yell and screaming, and went to town on the bear with tent poles, large sticks and anything he could get his hands on. Now almost 45 feet from the tent, he was able to drive the bear off. He had to drive the bear off several times. By now everyone else is now up. The crew gathered around the kid, started first aid, and radioed in the incident. After about 2 minutes, the bear popped up again, and started circling the entire group and charging periodically. The kid ended up having 16 puncture wounds from his wrist to his shoulder that were bone deep.
--2001--I was in grad school, but I had pretty well hand picked one of the bear guys (who was later a groomsman for me), so I had a pretty good handle on the situation. And it turned out the kid came back in 2002 to be on staff, and I got a great teaching tool/aide (turned out I knew more about his incident than he did). The bear had been one of my older radio collared males in '99, so I knew it pretty well.
--Old Camp--Crew still had their ranger (source of frustration with the screw ups). Before sundown, there was a decent sized bear seen about 75 yards from camp feeding on choke cherries. This really isn't all that unusual. An over zealous ranger had a kid collect his puke in a ziplock (important later), and left by the sump. About 10 PM, rustling was heard under the dining fly. About 3 AM, rustling was again heard around several packs, and then over near the sump. For some reason, everyone just assumed someone was rustling around. Around 4 AM, a tent got hit with a 16 and 17 yo inside.
Initially the 16 yo was hit. This kid was a high school DE, and came up swinging. The bear gave up on him immediately, and tagged the scrawny a-- 17 yo tentmate. The bear grabbed him by the ear canal (and later eye socket) and jaw, and immediately yanked him out of the tent. The bear flipped him quick and was dragging him while strattling the victim (ie-no leverage to fight). The whole time the tentmate is beating the tar of the bear, and it didn't care. Two rangers, and basically every advisor in camp was in on the fight at some point. The bear would let go, then relatch on. When the bear finally let go of the kid's head, and attacked the leg, and an advisor smashed it in the head with a football sized rock. The 17 yo ended up with multiple severe head lacerations, a partially crushed eye socket, part of a missing ear, several broken bones, a tricep almost ripped off , and a about a 3 inch deep bite out of his thigh. That finally drove it off. Several days later, a NMGF Conservation Officer shot the bear.
To be blunt, what ended up saving the kid was luck to some extent. There was a EMT in the camp at the time. AND, two kids in another crew in camp happened to be two of the best cross country runners in the country. They were able to make the trip to radio help in less than half the normal time, in the dark.
Screw ups......
*Tent was a long way from anybody
*Tent about 20 feet from sump
*Food wrappers were found under the dining fly
*Several packs had minor damage, and various food packets were around the packs
*Packs with food, were directly in front of the tent
*A weird, half eaten ziplock bag was found about 10 feet from the tent---it took a while to figure out, but yeah, it was the barf bag. Sick to us, but a major reward for the bear.
*Several other random things were found in the immediate vicinity
*There was a single, mundane sighting about 2 weeks before the incident
*This bear basically had very little in the way of teeth left.
Dang, I've rambled, hopefully you can pick up so useful tidbits. I have a pretty funny C/E incident involving an ice cream party, trespassers, hound dogs, and one extremely goofy freaking 3 yo bear all in the same incident. But I am about to fall asleep.
