Posts tagged bears
Subtag of animals · 4 child tags
There are basically two bear-resistant containers meant for storing food while backpacking, bear canisters and Ursacks. What are the pros and cons of each?
In Glacier National Park (USA), there are 63 backcountry campgrounds. I looked at the backcountry campground website including the map and campsite information. Are there bear poles/boxes at back...
In Norway, Sweden, and Finland, there are resident bears, but they rarely go near people, nobody practices the kind of bear safety that is necessary in parts of North America, and this does not lea...
A page like this one, as well as a number of questions on this site, discuss how to pack food safely from bears. What about other animals? This post advises a pretty sophisticated way to protect ...
Does anyone know of passive, enduring ways to deter Black Bears from entering an area? Hopefully an ecologically friendly way. The area is a homestead in forest with livestock and an extensive gar...
Bears are mostly attracted by smell of food. That is why we are supposed to keep the food items in airtight and sealed packs or preferably finish up all the food (cooking and consuming) far away fr...
An entrepreneur is planning a campsite-hotel in Romania, with a full outdoor gourmet restaurant attached, with an outdoor kitchen. There will be no cabins or other living structures, only tents an...
What should I do if I am in a tent, have been sleeping, and was woken up by the sounds of some large animal quite close to the tent? Just hearing some branches broken by presumably something large....
In Svalbard, the arctic archipelago administrated by Norway, anyone leaving Longyearbyen is required to carry a rifle for their own safey. For grizzly bears, Wikivoyage recommends that Bear repelle...
I live in the West Georgia area. We now have several trees chewed up beginning 5 feet off the ground and all the way around the tree, some to the very top. I found a birch that had a 4 foot section...
People have speculated that women hiking in bear country during their menstrual cycle might increase their chances of a bear encounter. Is this true? What can be done to minimize risk? Related que...
I am reading Three Among the Wolves by Helen Thayer, who is best known for walking and skiing to the North Magnetic Pole accompanied only by her husky, Charlie. In a subsequent trip, she and her ...
I've heard various rumors that dogs might help keep bears away, or might be a bear attractant. Is there anything more concrete than anecdotal evidence to go on? From the companionship end, they ar...
Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne (1876) describes how Siberian hunters used to hunt bears with nothing but a knife. This was ideally done with a single lethal blow, to damage the fur as little as po...
When camping in a bear country, will a tent provide an additional protection from bears, as opposed to just sleeping outside or in a hammock? Provided I take the usual precautions of keeping any f...
We live in a suburban town in Massachusetts, Northeast United States. We keep a lot of bird feeders stocked all year with things birds and animals like, excluding meat and fruit. Yesterday, Oct...
I live in the suburban town of Holden, in Central Massachusetts. Many hundreds of acres of mature woodland areas are being torn down nearby to create new roads and housing developments, and it's ge...
I was backcountry camping recently in the Canadian Rockies and there was a sign that said “please don’t urinate around the campsite, it is attracting bears”. Of course, following LNT principles, I ...
Is bear spray (pepper spray specially formulated to be effective against bear attacks) effective against other animals, especially mountain lions or wolves? Or is there something in it specifically...
So pen launcher bear bangers have apparently been around for quite a while, the training video for Truflare looks like something from out of the 90's, but they don't appear to be very popular, and ...
It is said you not only need to keep food at least 30-100 meters away from the tent, which is easy do to, but you also can't sleep in the same clothing which was worn while eating, which can be ver...
Excluding hybrids it seems like there are eight species of bears. Which are most and least likely to injure or kill a human? Related Do black, brown/grizzly or polar bears ever prey on humans? ...
One of the most debated issues concerning wilderness, in Italy, is the reintroduction (or bizarrely large increase in the population) of animals almost extinguished till recently. While in most c...
I am hoping for more than anecdotal evidence about the negative effects on black bears of the human scent -- ranging from meh to Yecch. This question is prompted by two anecdotes I have to offer:...
I'm going on a multi day backpacking trip and I am planning on taking only a backpacking hammock instead of a tent. When I mentioned this to a friend of mine he jokingly referred to me as a bear t...
A recent post said: a black bear can kill a man (or a dog) with a single swat of its paw. I suppose anything is possible. But is it realistic? Has it ever happened? Googling 'man killed by ...
I have two large dogs - a German Shepherd and a Presa Canario. I hike alone with my dogs in black (not grizzly) bear country. Do I still need to hang my food? Or will the three of us be able to c...
Living in the north-east part of America, my chances of encountering a grizzly bear are very low. I have greater chances of meeting a black bear. If I got the chance of meeting a grizzly, should I...
Do bears, as opposed to defending cubs, being startled by humans, or trying to get into food, ever decide to prey on humans? As in stalk, kill and then eat them?
If I'm out hiking, and I come around a corner and stumble upon a bear, what's the best course of action to take to minimize the chance the bear will act aggressively? Do different types of bear (...
I continue year of the bear with more trees. Can grizzly bears climb trees?
I am an animal lover and would only shoot at a bear as an absolute last resort Assume I have done everything possible to avoid contact with a bear, and after encountering one have followed the bes...
I am attending a conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and afterwards I am considering going for a 3-day hike somewhere around Turbine Canyon[1], 3-isle[2] or Aster Lake[3] in the Rockies. How sa...
My friends and I are traveling the North Country Trail in Michigan's Upper Peninsula this August. Even though odds are small, we could encounter a grizzly bear. This is something none of us have ex...
A friend travelled to Alaska last summer, and took several guided trips in areas with large brown bear populations. In each case, according to his report, the guides were armed only with bear spra...
I am considering a trek in August/September in the Mealy Mountains and English Mountains in Labrador (Canada's newest National Park; for info see 1, 2, 3). However, I am worried by the prospect of...
I recently talked with a young geologist, some of whose field work is in the Arctic. We mostly talked about the science, but the geologist mentioned being certified (not sure of this word) to act a...
For hiking in polar bear country, this answer cites a page that advices to avoid camping under the stars at all times. Yet people do go trekking on Svalbard, and I don't think the density of huts i...
I like to do long hikes in black bear country. I don't really go on multiday trekking trips, just day trips but often need to bring food along. I know that backpackers often keep their food in be...
Sometimes I camp with people who pass out drinking beer and don't bother to clean up their trash before they go to bed. Since we are in black bear country, I was wondering if empty beer bottles can...
Even if I was to follow the advice of letting bears know I am in the area, keeping my cooking and anything that smells at least 100m from my camp & downwind, etc, suppose a bear finds my tent a...
I know that they say to make as much noise as possible to try and show your dominance, but what happens if I am sleeping? If I wake up with a bear right outside my tent while i'm sleeping, and I ha...
A woman in a semi-rural Maryland neighborhood was injured by a black bear sow a day or two ago. See The Washington Post. She heard a dog barking, went out with her dog on a leash to investigate a...
A traveller to a country with different customs is well advised to read up on the customs of the people of that country, and to learn how the residents expect polite people to behave. Everywhere, ...
I hope the bear experts on the site can shed light on several aspects of a black bear encounter my husband and I had some years ago in the Sierra. It was mid-May, about 9500 feet, well above timbe...
I always see it pointed out, when discussing how to handle/avoid bear encounters, that black bears can climb trees. Granted, but does that matter? Has there ever been a case of a black bear pursu...
I am hiking in black bear country (no other kinds of bears there). It's dark, I have a whistle hanging around my neck to scare away such a potential bear and I'm using my torch light to be able to ...
There are 16 subspecies of Ursus americanus, the black bear. The Wikipedia article describes their different physical characteristics and geographical distributions, but not differences in tempera...
This question is prompted by the replies to Questions about specifics of black bear encounter with mother and yearling cub. That question was about an encounter over 30 years ago, before the era o...
When an adult black bear without cubs in sight got a hold of an open bear-can, is it advisable to try to scare him/her away (with noise, or by approaching him/her as a group?) I am asking both for...
