At 10:53 PM 2/20/98 -0800, Michael Price wrote:

>>Since black bears mostly bluff and (in the statistic sense) rarely hurt or
>>kill folks, if you're in grizzly country worry about griz.

>Actually, you shouldn't take black bears Ursus americanus for granted: they
>will stalk, attack and eat humans as prey, as well as defensively attack
>whereas grizzly bears U. arctos apparently treat humans as not-prey,

There are a couple of half-truths in the above statement. I do suggest folks
read Herrero's book, though I'm welcome to suggestions of other comprehensive
bear safety books if anyone has a better or more recent source.

Fatal attacks on humans by black bears have almost always involved a black
bear stalking and attacking a human as a prey item. However, this is an
EXCEEDINGLY rare event when measured in terms of black bear/human contacts.
There are a couple or three dozen such documented cases in North America,
but when you consider that even casual hikers in many parts of the US will
encounter black bears on the trail while very, very few will encounter
grizzlies in such situations. For instance, I've had trailside encounters
with black bears in three states and have known myself to be near a black
bear in another (though I never saw it). My only grizzly experience was
from about a mile away, which I didn't mind (I've seen literally dozens of
black bear, at least, at such distances).

On the other hand, black bears acting defensive, typically a mom with cubs,
is so unlikely to actually attack a person that this possibility can largely
be ignored.

It is this reality that leads to the advice that one fight back if attacked
by a black bear. The chances are high that if you're attacked, especially
if it is a sudden attack by an unseen bear, that the sweetie is trying to
eat you. If charged by a black bear, stand your ground.

This, of course, is the opposite advice given for grizzly which charge in
defense of young or carcass. The griz wants to remove you as a perceived
threat, "playing dead" makes you seem unthreatening and grizzly typically
move off if you can perform this trick and assuming the first blow hasn't
killed you. Herrero also points out that 1) even experts can have difficulty
separating the two species and 2) if you play dead with a black bear, this
mistake probably won't change things but if you fight a griz which is simply
defending prey or cubs you've made a serious mistake so in country with both
species err on the side of misidentifying black bears as griz, not vice-versa.

When considered on a bear-to-bear basis, grizzly are undoubtably far more
likely to consider you prey than a black bear, after all they take full-grown
elk. But, since black bear encounters outnumber griz bear encounters by
a factor of thousands or more, given the fact that griz are extinct in most
of the lower 48 and that black bear cohabit with humans in many, many areas
(we get them in Portland's West Hills occasionally), in absolute numbers
predation attacks by black bears rival those by griz. This is misleading,
though, when confronted by a bear you want to know the odds of that particular
bear munching you. The fact that you're more likely to be killed by a car
when crossing the street rather than by being struck by an asteroid doesn't
mean falling asteroids are harmless - it's just a reflection of the fact
that there are a lot more cars on the road than asteroids falling from the
sky. However, this will be of little comfort if you ever look up and discover
an asteroid about to fall on you!

So, in short, neither griz or black bear are likely to treat you as prey,
but in absolute terms the data is swamped by the huge number of black
bear-human encounters compared to griz-human encounters. Statements
like "grizzly bears U. arctos apparently treat humans as not-prey" can
be proven trivially false by quickly studying two very famous predation
attacks that occured in Glacier NP on the same night. Both involved
young women sound asleep who were eaten alive, at least until they
died. Very poignant. Also examples of the worst and most lax approach
to bear management imaginable, as one of the griz involved had been
harassing folks for days, had mouth problems, and was nearly starved,
yet nothing had been done to remove the bear from the area nor were
the campers warned of previous problems.

Strangely, black bear predation attacks are almost always during the
day - the opposite of griz predation attacks. Of 23 black bear deaths
20 were due to a predatory attack (1960-1980), an amazing percentage
if you read my quoting of Herrero below regarding food habituated
bears and people (the predatory attacks typically don't involve an
habituated black bear). Remember, though, that the data is swamped
by the much greater numbers of incidents of contact between black bear
and people - yet, griz killed twice as many people in this time. He
stresses this swamping effect a couple of times in the book.

Oh - one of the 23 deaths was due to a person falling out of a tree
after being chased by a black bear :)

Defensive attacks by griz greatly outnumber predation attacks, and many
predation attacks occur at night (if any bear starts eating you while
you're sleeping, don't worry about identifying the species, just fight
back!), so if you can't figure out what's up you're best off playing
dead. The odds are you're doing the right thing. Of course, if you
can actually figure out precisely what's going on and fight back in
that 5% or 10% of times when it's the right thing to do with a griz
(i.e. you're being preyed upon) then you increase the odds even more.

One "right thing" - if a black bear attacks you in daylight without
provocation fight it off with anything available, even small kids
(presumably prey items) have done so successfully.

I read Herrero's book a couple of times while exploring mountain ridges
in griz country in Montana for possible hawk migration concentrators.
Since I was hiking by myself and seeing bear shit all over I read closely.


> and
>their attacks are defensive (cubs, food, den-site)--the exception being
>young-punk yearling grizzlies unsure of what is prey and what isn't; also,
>they're more likely to confront with surly attitude as they're at that
>rotten 'you gotta problem with me, pal?' age where they need to establish
>'respect' and dominance. If you ever have a face-to-face with a north-woods
>homey, just remember, there's no such thing as a 'bad' young grizzly, it's
>just insecure.

On an individual basis, it's clear that Herrero thinks an adult male guarding
a carcass is the most dangerous. For one thing, they'll attack to remove
perceived threats to their food stash up to a mile or so away. For another,
they'll do this based on smell alone (they can't really see you that far
away anyway, being rather nearsighted) so you may well not know they're
there. For yet another, they'll run to you at about 30 mph so it only
takes a couple of minutes for them to arrive giving you little time to
climb a tree (Herrero points out you should climb 33 feet high as there's
one documented case of someone being dragged from a tree 32.5 feet up).
Mainly, though, an adult male in such a case presents a severe danger
simply because of their size - they're much bigger than females or young
males. They're much more likely to kill you with the first, unexpected
blow than their smaller buddies and more likely to follow through with
an attack.

>Secondly, black bears grow *very* big up north, big enough that occasionally
>one will wake up with a sedative-hangover and a grizzly-bear-study radio
>collar around its neck being awarded a free 500-km chopper flight to a
>destination of the biologist-in-charge's choice (no, they can't collect
>frequent-flier miles, that's only for grizzlies).

While they grow big, behaviorly they're not much different. Most problems
with black bears involve property destruction, even Yosemite female black
bears are capable of peeling back doors off sedans like you'd open a sardine
can. They normally just want food, though. Ones I've seen don't attack you,
they ignore you. You can yell at them, scream at them, hit them, kick them,
and they'll just finish with the Doritos, bag and all.

Herrero does caution that all bets are off regarding black bear predation
with kids, there's no real data and of course kids are smaller and much
more tender :)

>Strongly second Don B's recommendation of Herrero's book as the best on the
>subject, though I should point out the first half of his book is seriously
>graphic and highly-detailed in its descriptions of attacks and their
>consequences, and should have the caution: Warning--gory violence within. No
>kidding. If you're squeamish, be warned.

>Both bear species bluff-charge as well as gonna-kill-ya charge. The trick to
>telling them apart, I gather, is to know the body language. For the above
>reasons, black bears are equally dangerous as grizzlies, though sometimes a
>bit easier to intimidate, and there's been quite a few black bear attacks on
>humans. One interesting idea about grizzly females with cubs resorting to
>such hyperviolence as a defence is that they're typically in tundra-type
>habitats where there's no trees for the cubs to climb up out of harm's way.

Ummm...Herrero doesn't back this up. "black bears are equally dangerous
as griz"? Did we read the same book?

Page 93 - not an exact quote, a paraphrase:

"Between 1960 and 1980, black bears injured over 500 people. This may
make them seem more ferocious than grizzlies, which they are DEFINITELY
NOT. The large number of injuries is partly because there are about
10 times as many black bear as grizzly in North America (Don's note:
and most of the griz are in Alaska/Canada where population density's
low). Also, 90% of the black-bear inflicted injuries were minor...
contrasting sharply with the grizzly situation, where over half were
major".

"Most black bear injuries occurred in National Parks, typically happening
in campgrounds where black bears were seeking food ... at least 90% of
black bear injuries I attribute to bears habituated to people and conditioned
to eating human food"

(Herrero's work, along with US research, is why NPs have become so aggressive
in the past 10-20 years about requiring the use of food storage lockers, etc)

"The bear's intense motivation to feed on human foods or garbage has probably
set up hundreds of thousands of situations that could have led to human
injury,
yet only a few did."

He then describes a case where a black bear was enticed by a woman in
Yellowstone
during the 60s (part of the data period) to dance for food. When the food was
gone the bear, while dropping to all fours, gently (and apparently accidently)
raked her with its front claws, leaving minor scratches but leaving her
topless.
This, of course, is one of the 500 injuries recorded in the period.

He then discusses 624 cases of aggression by roadside black bears against
people
in Great Smoky NP (again, back when feeding was common, he's citing research
which has led to ending tolerance for this practice). Only 37 (6%) resulted
in contact, no major injuries. Crowding or (!) petting preceeded 29 (78%) of
the 37 cases of contact.

This chapter is entitled "The Tolerant Black Bear".

While Herrero doesn't suggest you treat black bear as harmless (indeed, he
argues just the opposite) he CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY throughout his book
emphasizes that grizzly bear are FAR more dangerous. He argues this primarily
because he believes that griz and people should be managed so that they
don't come into contact in National Parks, via signage and closure of areas
where griz are known to be, etc (strategies which parks like Yellowstone
have adopted in the last decade or two - Herrero wrote his book in 1985).
He argues this because encounters are all too frequently injurious to
people, leading to a dead griz, and the relative benigness of the "tolerant
black bear" had led to a complacent attitude to both species by visitors,
in particular.

Anyway, rather than my typing in the entire book to tweeters, I suggest folks
who need to work or play in bear country read it.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net