I'm just catching up on my tweeters mail, so I'm a
little late in joining the bear conversation.

But it's worth mentioning (I hope) that a couple of
up-to-day studies on bear attacks have appeared on TV
recently. The Discovery channel has just shown a episode
on black bear predation, including some video by a fisherman
who was being stalked by a black bear. (The man got away.)

('Scuse me for going blank on the name of the bear authority
whose work the show was based on.)

Anyway, the study pinned the blame for attempts at preying
on people exclusively on male black bears.

Moreover, the study found that female black bears seldom
attacked even in the defense of their cubs. And when they
did attack to defend cubs, they quit the attacks as soon as
they didn't sense any danger--that is, when the threatening
people lay still.

Does anyone else see this TV presentation?

* * * * * * * *

On the subject of how hard it is to shoot down grizzlies (a
point that Don Baccus emphasizes)--Meriwether Lewis has a lot
to say in his journals. His men in the Corps of Discovery had
plenty of experience with black bears, but they had never
actually faced grizzlies until they got to the great plains.
Lewis tells of the first times that his men (most all of them
quite handy with their rifles) tried--overconfidently as it
turned out--to plug grizzlies. They pumped shot after shot
into onrushing grizzlies that just wouldn't drop like black
bears would. They learned real quickly that these were a
different kind of bear.

--cheers, Jim Lyles
Tacoma