Black bear attacks

[Dharma]

Saw in the news in Florida that a woman was mauled by a black bear in her driveway. Seems a few were there, dining on the garbage. Hmmm....seems like folks in that area need to get up a hunting party so the caution around humans will return. When black bears lose fear of humans and start coming around to feed on the trash, this is always when maulings occur. Seems to me that in a populated area, maybe this is a good time for a "special" bear archery tag. No need for camo, just squat down behind the azaleas and zap them when they go for the garbage can. Is it baiting? Well, technically, no. The trash has to go out, right? Hmmm....I'm thinking treestands in the front yard. Maybe a blind up on the garage roof. This has possibilities!

[PrimitiveTim]

I heard 4 were already killed....

[mullet]

We used to be able to hunt them here till the Bunny Huggers complained. Now they have no where in the State to relocate nusense bears.

I think it's a conspiracy to charge us a boatload of money to hunt bears like they did with gators.

[Rick Wallace]

What Mullett said. I had one on my property last month,see them in the woods all the time.We need a season.

[lostarrow]

They finally reintroduced the spring bear hunt in Ontario this year. Population exploded  when they stopped it several years ago. Huge problems  in most areas up North. The law makers are in the south   .

[adb]

I wonder what the bunny huggers would think if they got mauled in their driveway. "Awww... lookit that cute little baby bear..."

[lostarrow]

I'm guessing that the policy makers started to see the issue  first hand at their "cottages " in the Muskokas

[Dharma]

A similar thing happened in California. Mountain lions were taken off the game lists and became non-hunt. Not long after, they started eating joggers. The state game people would get up a hunting party and kill what they "thought" was the responsible cougar, but this doesn't help anything at all really. It takes a constant hunting presence to make the animals have a fear of humans. In areas where no one hunts cougars, you can run across them. In areas where people do, especially with dogs, you'll never see one without the aid of hunting dogs.

[PrimitiveTim]

got this from one of the articles, "Frana was attacked in her driveway on Saturday evening after she went outside to check on her children."  WHAT???  Her children were out there with the bear but it wanted her not the children who were already outside?  None of these reports give a clear story of what actually happened before the mauling.  hmmm, maybe she didn't want to admit fault to provoking?  Anyway, this story is full of holes and FWC didn't need to go out and shoot 5 bears to appease the blood thirsty masses. 

Anyway, these bears aren't dangerous because they're not being hunted, they're dangerous because they're being fed.  They're attracted to our high calorie, easy pickin's garbage.  If food wasn't available near houses bears would stay in the woods where there is food.

That's my two cents....

[Marc St Louis]

got this from one of the articles, "Frana was attacked in her driveway on Saturday evening after she went outside to check on her children."  WHAT???  Her children were out there with the bear but it wanted her not the children who were already outside?  None of these reports give a clear story of what actually happened before the mauling.  hmmm, maybe she didn't want to admit fault to provoking?  Anyway, this story is full of holes and FWC didn't need to go out and shoot 5 bears to appease the blood thirsty masses. 

Anyway, these bears aren't dangerous because they're not being hunted, they're dangerous because they're being fed.  They're attracted to our high calorie, easy pickin's garbage.  If food wasn't available near houses bears would stay in the woods where there is food.

That's my two cents....

Maybe she was kicking snow in that Bears face 

[Dharma]

Be that as it may, people do have to put the garbage out for collection. It's a sanitation issue common with inhabited areas, after all. While black bears are, by nature, timid, there have been unprovoked attacks by them here in Arizona as well. AZG&F recently tranq darted one up in a tree behind a Basha's supermarket in downtown Flagstaff. To get there, it had to walk through inhabited areas and across a busy road. But this is what it did regularly to get into the Basha's dumpster. By the way, it had to go past a hospital to get to that Basha's.

There's no easy solution. You could say trash cans have to be locked. But who pays for that? And that means trash collection crews now have to unlock every trash can before dumping. Not to mention the trash can will need to be pretty bombproof to keep the bears from just tearing it open. You could say no one can dump food into the trash, but how's that going to be enforced and what are people going to do with a rotten 5 pound roast or turkey carcass?

Yes, I will say that better wisdom needs to prevail in building houses in wilderness areas. Driving flatbed, I once delivered a load of structural steel to a McMansion being built in the middle of the forest. Hikers were astounded I could get that rig up on that road to begin with. I wasn't at all sure I wouldn't be calling a heavy to tow me out and watching the heavy get stuck also. And, seriously, if the road can't support a rig, is this a place to build a house as a big as a Russian army barracks just for one man to live in? And, yes, this guy is going to start whining when the bears are in his yard and the elk are eating his trees and cougars eat his $10000 poodle. That's one thing and in a case like that, I totally side with the wildlife. But in inhabited areas where houses are and have been for some time, it isn't those peoples' faults if bears discover a target of opportunity in their trash cans. Totally different scenario there.

Now, humans have always hunted bears. They were a prime source of fats and cooking oils. Not to mention fur that was great for extreme cold weather clothing. These things carried a lot of survival value or humans wouldn't have risked death hunting them with spears and bows. So, one can say there is a cultural history of bear hunting, so it's just as valid as hunting deer. Bowhunting bears carries the same risk today as it did 10,000 years ago. Many states don't allow carrying firearms on an archery hunt for any reason, so most bowhunters after bears are assuming the risk assumed by hunters thousands of years ago. 

[stickbender]

     So far they have killed seven bears.  The lady that was mauled, probably was feeding it.  After all it was just a black bear, not one of those dangerous Grizzly bears.  Who knew?  Right.  There used to be a hunting season on them, and like Eddie said, the bunny huggers, got all upset, and greased the palms of politicians, and it stopped.  Now they are a nuisance, and are pretty much everywhere, in the mid to northern part of the state.  Used to be a lot of out of state hunters, come down to the Big Cypress, and Devils Garden area.  From Texas, and from up north, to hunt black bears.  The black bears are plentiful, now, and you can see them crossing the roads, and there many Bear Crossing signs, around.
Too many people think they are so cute, and not dangerous.  Even a small one will tear you a new %$$#@!@  !
I got a kick out of the picture of the "Gated Community".  OK, so you have a gate.  No fence around  the area.  If bears can get in, so can people, aka burglars, rapists, murderers, crack/meth heads, etc.  The people were upset that the State killed seven bears, but if they feed them, oh well.  They will come to the garbage, and bird feeders.  They need to realize that the bears are just doing what is natural for them, trying to survive.  Maybe if they used rubber shot from shotguns, to sting them a bit, and used dogs to chase them, they would not be so eager to enter the neighbor hood, but I doubt that would work either.  Sounds like bear steaks, bear fat, and a nice rug for the fireplace, to me;)

                                                                                Wayne

[Dharma]

People feed wild animals thinking they're doing them a favour, but they're not. I get a laugh out of some people who have wild bird feeders. I have nothing against those and there's no problem with them. But they get wrapped around the axle because house sparrows show up and monopolize the feeders and basically make a move on the feeders like the Red Army into Berlin in 1945. Then the cutesy songbirds don't come around, the mountain bluebirds and so on because there's sparrows goosestepping all over the place like an avian Wehrmacht. Well, hey, sparrows are birds. They see free food, they're all over it. You can have a Mickey D's in the middle of the desert and not a tree around and sparrows will be all over it, eating the spilled fries and living in the landscaping.

Point is, animals be they bears or sparrows are going to take the path of least resistance. Gathering food represents an expenditure of energy. You have a point of diminishing returns if you burn more calories than you gain while gathering food. Food just waiting for the taking is ripe for picking. Humans are the same way. That's why we have fast food like Taco Bell and KFC. But park a tank and troops outside of the Burger King and start carting people off to a detention camp and watch how fast people start thinking, "Hmmmm....maybe I better cook at home..."  Same with bears. Park some hunters around and watch how fast the bears figure out those berries and carrion in the woods ain't so bad after all. 

[Bryce]

All the black bears I've ever come into contact with have all ran off like a shot. Even a sow with cubs, did not hesitate to run.
The only time a bear came at me was a few years back, came at me stopped 10 yards out slammed it's front paws on the ground. I called his bluff, and he too ran off when I stood my ground. I'm not saying that's the way to do it. The only thing predictable about a bear is that they're unpredictable.
Most bears are skiddish and run. But you get the occasional few that are just grumpy.

[H Rhodes]

I wish we had more of them.  It's dang near an airplane ride if I want to hunt black bear.  The population here in Alabama is supposedly rising, but not to a huntable number yet.   We have isolated little areas where there are a few.  I have only seen two in the wild here in my life, and I spend a lot of time in the woods.  Everyone that I have seen has been getting the hell out of Dodge.  They seem pretty shy to me.    I don't know a lot about bear behavior, but I do know that animals have to be taken one at a time, just like people.  Most anything will attack you when it feels it has to - main causes being love, money, religion, and groceries.  I doubt the first three mean much of anything to a bear, but that last one is probably the culprit.  Don't feed the bears.