How to Avoid a Bear Attack.

It Could happen….When hiking the back country it ‘s easy to become distracted by the surrounding vistas, tracking your location or the blisters from the last 15 miles. Its these distractions  compounded with the fact that most people are not “in-tune” with the wilderness environment they are in.

Many hikers and campers alike don’t know the difference between animal trails or foot trails. They don’t know if they are walking upwind or down, North or South. Point being…hikers don’t always pay attention to their surrounding environment. If they did, many back country accidents would be avoided. Certainly dangerous bear encounters and especially attacks can be avoided. Admittedly, bear attacks are very rare.

Having seen a number of bears on and off the trail, I never encountered one that had any interest other than getting as far away as it could. Each encounter was awesome experience as it should be.

Making some noise along the trail is usually enough to announce ones presence and avoid walking up on an unsuspecting bear. The last thing you want is to startle a bear into thinking it needs to defend itself. Mother bears with cubs can be fearless. If her cubs whine or cry’s and you’re lucky enough to witness this, she’s likely to blame you and come talk to you about it.

Most who encounter bears do so in national parks. We typically see the ones that have developed the same taste for junk food as ourselves. They can be found casing camp sites, parking lots or dumps… anywhere a bear can find a quick urban meal. It’s these bears that become more accustom to humans and our garbage.  These bears show less fear and become more assertive in their attempts to find food. This makes them more dangerous to both themselves and people.

Bears tagged as a problem risk being tranquilized and relocated. Sadly, the same bears can also be marked for destruction. The National Park Service has little choice considering that we the Tourist, Hikers, Campers and all around outdoors men fail to follow a few simple rules. Store your food in bear lockers or other NPS approved means. Don’t leave food or any items in your vehicle that has a scent.

(For those of you that purposely feed the bears, don’t. This act reinforces an unnatural behavior that will ultimately kill the bear. If a bear is not foraging or hunting for its food then it’s been conditioned by humans to think that handouts and garbage are a better option.)

A bears  sense of smell is 7 times greater than that of a bloodhound and can easily smell an empty food wrapper left in you’re vehicle.  A hungry determined bear will sniff out the would be treat and proceed to open your vehicle similar to how you would open a can of soup. Bears are ingenuous creatures and will find away to part you from your food.

Before you head out to the mountains, clean out your car of anything that a bear may interpret as food.  Keep all food items in a cooler or bear canister that can easily be removed from your car and stowed in your hotel room or bear storage locker. Use a bear canister when on the trail.

For those of you who venture beyond the parking lot and have a few concerns on how to handle your self in bear territory, here’s a humorous video that offers a few good tips.