> A man was just recently killed this month by a brown bear on the Kenai
> Peninsula from a bear attack. A crew was doing some sort of survey work
> and stumbled upon a denned up bear. The bear killed one of the crew (I
> guess the others made it up a tree) before it ran off, never to be seen
> again. Little can be done in a situation like that as the bear totally
> surprised them.
>

I suppose this thread has been well worked, but maybe its worthwhile
to reinforce your points about how easy it may be to be surprised by
bears, no matter what. I have a friend who used to work as a
surveyor for the BLM in Alaska. It was one of those long days when
everyone had done a lot of hard work and was ready to get home.
There were four people on the crew. At the end of the day the
helicopter showed up and landed on the end of a gravel bar, and still
had its rotors running-- kicking up all sort of wind and noise. The
four are strolling towards it with all their gear, not hearing much
of any thing except the chopper, and thinking about dinner. My
friend was at the front of the line walking along a beach, with thick
alders back of the beach, she never saw a thing. All she remembers
was suddenly being picked up by her head and blacking out. The bear
dropped her after one chomp and ran off, disappearing into the
alders. Now one side of her face is permanently paralized.

The point, of course, is no different than that made by several
posters on this thread. When you're working in the brush and thinking
about other things you are very much at risk, and bears don't always
run off just because there is a lot of "foreign" noise in the area.
Jerry Broadus
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371