Ok, holy words.

Super great info. Thanks. I will prob be camping solo at or a little above timber in a BA UL3. Tent is a hybrid between a dome and A. 3.75 lbs and the heavy component of my pack. But I like roomy and sleeping in the middle. Also I have a prob wrong idea that size matters to deter a curious bear. From your accounts prob no diff particularly for a predator bear. Como Lake near Great Sand Dunes is at 11700 and I plan to camp above the lake around 12300. The lake is a popular base camp area for climbers of Blanca Peak, Little Bear and Ellingwood. So bears are prob used to human scent there. I am going to try and summit Blanca in my old age (only class 2 so they say) and maybe a little fly fishing on the way out. Prob gonna pick up an Ursack. I am working on my oldster friends but so far no takers.

I usually keep my pack under the vestibule of my tent. Bad idea?

The old bears in the predatory attacks you recounted, especially #2, sounded like he had lost his mind. I assume not rabid or you would have stated. Bear alzheimer's?

Also, very fortunate that major arteries in the neck were not punctured.

Forgot to mention I will be doing this in early August.

Interesting job. Did it ever get to be "work"?

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 2/18/2013 9:35a).]

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 2/18/2013 10:18a).]

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 2/18/2013 11:10a).]

As long as you've always been pretty good about managing your food (and toiletries), and don't have food particles in your pack, not a huge issue. Personally, the only thing I keep in my vestibule is my boots.---Keep in mind, cleaning products, toothpaste, scented chapstick, etc. can be just as attractive as food. I've seen a bear eat a Brillo pad (talk about easy tracking).

I loved all 4 years of doing the bear work (and why I am still so passionate about bears). It was great the first year doing all the radio telemetry work. Part of my job was to test level of habituation, which literally meant seeing how close I could get before getting a reaction (actually get up and move, or actually watch me with more than a simple look up). Learned about they all have different personalities and unique behaviors, but lots of generalities you could play with. All this was done unarmed other than pepper spray when I was starting to approach the 20' mark on a bear. I would do this 12-15 times a day. I loved every minute of it, and only felt threatened once when I interfered with a bear's love life. My last two years was more outreach and enforcement related.

It became "work" occasionally twofold. First, I suck at taking time off. Like today, I'm technically off, but I'm writing this up at lunch. When I was doing the doing the bear work, it wasn't uncommon for me to be 19-21 days on, and 1 day off. All my partners were more 5-7 to 2. Secondly, it sucked when I had to hunt down or trap and kill a initiated by someone usually blatant stupidity. I had an incident my first year where a crew left lots of random food laying around, and a bear got into it. Due too the fact it had NO reaction to people trying to run it off, the decision was made to put it down. We'll just say the small sow (119 lbs), took 3 lethally placed 12 ga slugs, and took an extended period of time to die. It hit everyone involved pretty hard. I trapped and moved a lot of bears. They are probably about the easiest things to trap. But there was something of a kick in the gut when you walked up to a trap, and discovered the bear was already sporting 2 yellow ear tags (3 strikes). Almost every bear I trapped started with someone leaving food (or toothpaste) out in some capacity.----Ironically, I had one bear I trapped 45 seconds after I drove off, and another that walked in within 5 minutes of me setting the trap. The mix of rotted bear meat (what was handy), watermelon, and occasionally vomit (not kidding, my help would often get sick setting the trap, free, stinky bait). I would mix the watermelon and meat together in black trash bags at the beginning of summer. I'd throw the mix on the roof until I needed it, usually a month or more later. It came out as a grey lumpy soup. Stunk like all get out, but bears couldn't get enough of it.

Sounds like they will eat anything organic and some things not.

Thanks.

I do take bear safety and conservation very seriously. I was back out at Philmont about this time last year for a conservation training. I can still find a bear out there in 2-3 hours pretty easy. We did a little short hike, and the seasonal staff member made the mistake of asking if anyone "had ever seen or knew anything about bears?". Two people in my actual class and a former coworker that happened to be out for a training session too, laughing their a-- off, "You really don't want to open that can or worms". I behaved myself, but yes, that hike learned more about bears than the ever dreamed.....to be fair, the staffer honestly didn't realizer she had a former bear researcher/professional wildlife biologist, and two professional foresters in her group that morning.

The super rare, quality thread bump. Nice find.

And thanks Ursus.

Side note----I've really tried to cut back on my random 1-3 AM posting habits.

I submit evidence that tree climbing may not be the most effective escape. Unless you are a much better climber than me.

rootube said:

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I submit evidence that tree climbing may not be the most effective escape. Unless you are a much better climber than me.

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Crap climbed that tree faster than I can run uphill.

ursusguy said:

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Sleep well in the western US

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I guess I need to start packing in a portable electric fence...

Serious question though:

I understand there are likely no hard and fast, 100% black and white statistics- i think you mentioned predatory bears are often older more nomadic bears. But are the bears involved in predatory attacks predominately inhabiting areas that people frequent (parks and such)? Or habituated in some way to people? This may not be easy to determine given that they generally aren't known to the rangers in that area prior to the attack. I'm just curious.

In other words, if you are way in the backcountry, are the risks of a predatory attack decreased at all (or is it so rare there is no real difference)? What about a CE encounter in backcountry vs campgrounds?

I'm obviously limiting my question to black bear country.

With a predatory attack, there is usually some level of habitation but due to the wandering nature they are rarely a known nuisance. They are typically "yeah, I've seen him before, but it was a couple months ago" types. Keep in mind when a male bb hits sexual maturity (4ish), they become less tolerant of humans, mostly in a good way. For the most part, draw a 500 m buffer around concentrations of human, amd for the most part the mature males are going to avoid that area.......Now your occasional large male that gets habituated, and food conditioned and becomes a true nuisance of hanging around rarely attacks....he may literally be the laziest critter in the animal kingdom at that point. It's really hard to predict where a predatory attack will occur, but nearly always, there some sort of initial non-human scent that got them interest perked......sounds odd, it's random but its really not. They haven't usually hung around, but something got their attention as they were coming through.......like I said in an earlier post, it is estimated that 1/2 of all campsites in the western US has a black bear wander through every night, you juat don't want them to linger.