5/1/02
The Naturalist's Corner
By Don Hendershot
If
you’ve been hiking and camping during the winter — or if
you haven’t been out since last fall — you may need a little
reminder. It’s bear season again. With more than 700,000 bears
and 210 million humans on the continent, it’s becoming more and
more likely that those of us who enjoy spending time in bear country
may actually see a bruin.Most of us were shocked in May 2000 at the news of a fatal black bear attack in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a precedent-setting incident. It was the first fatal bear attack in the park’s history and, according to Mike Pelton, wildlife professor emeritus from the University of Tennessee and a nationally known expert on black bear, it was the first time in the history of the country that a female black bear had ever been implicated in a fatal attack.
Pelton told a group of participants on his recent bear walk during the annual Wildflower Pilgrimage in the GSMNP that biologists and Park Service personnel could only extrapolate from the physical evidence what might have happened. He said it looked like the 50-year-old woman may have committed the cardinal error of running from the bears in question, a 112-pound female and 40-pound cub.
Evidence showed the woman was sitting at the end of a footbridge across a creek. She had a daypack with food and a camera in it. The last two exposures on the camera were of the two bears at the other end of the footbridge. The camera had then been put back in its case and back in the daypack.
Tracks show the woman ran up the bank of the creek and show the bears closed on her from an angle. He said what ever happened from that point is purely conjecture. There is no way to know if the woman fell or if the bears caught her in flight. And whether or not she was able to put up a struggle.
“But running is definitely the wrong thing to do if faced with an imminent bear attack. It elicits a predatorial response from the bear,” Pelton said.
Pelton said grizzly attacks and black bear attacks were different events. Black bear attacks are almost always food-related, he said. The bear smells food in your tent, your backpack or your car, or the bear for some reason thinks you are prey.
“You have to let the bear know you’re not a prey item. You have to become aggressive, really aggressive. Yell, scream, wave your arms, throw rocks — do whatever it takes to get the idea across that you’re not an easy meal,” Pelton said.
He said don’t run — bears can outrun you. Don’t climb a tree — bears can out climb you. Don’t drop your food in front of it — this only conditions a bear to approach other humans for food. And don’t play dead or curl up into a ball — if the bear has decided you are prey, it is going to eat you. Don’t make it easy for him.
Pelton said grizzlies usually attack because they were surprised or because they feel threatened. The tactic of curling into a ball is recommended in the case of a grizzly attack. If you play dead and don’t move the bear might decide you’re not a threat and leave.
Pelton said some parks out west where grizzlies are common recommend that hikers wear bells on their shoes and carry pepper spray. He also told the group that it was easy to differentiate between black bear scat and grizzly bear scat.
“Grizzly bear scat has bells in it and smells like pepper,” he said.
(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)