Subject: bears & pepper spray
Date: Jul 15 20:05:28 1999
From: Don Baccus - dhogaza at pacifier.com
At 03:37 PM 7/14/99 -0700, Riesen Reto wrote:
> For example, it
>introduced the idea of opportunistic predatory Grizzly attacks, so playing
>dead while laying in a tent and being sniffed by a bear might be the wrong
>answer.
Stephen Herrero makes the same point, so what's new? When a grizzly
stumbles across you in your tent at night while foraging for food,
it's definitely not the same kind of case as when you hike or
otherwise suddenly appear in the bear's space and are interpreted
as a threat to cubs or a kill. I can't imagine how Herrero could
possibly make the importance of whether a griz views you as a
threat, or whether it considers you a prey item, more
clear than he does in his book. He specifically mentions the
"Night Of The Grizzly" attacks as predation attacks. Those
were preventable attacks, and he concentrates on this fact
as he views it as a good example of naive Park management back
in the days of the open Yellowstone dump, etc. Elsewhere, though,
he talks about predation attacks by griz in a more general
sense.
>BTW, it makes also a strong point in favour of bear spray.
I've seen Herrero quoted as being, oh, how to say it, cautiously
optimistic about bear spray?
Supposedly, Herrero's book is coming out in a new edition, at
least that was the word a year ago. Perhaps this book is an
attempt by another publisher to preempt the publishing of an
updated Herrero book?
Whatever...Herrero's a real bear researcher and knows his
subject well.
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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