Dave Kruger has some good advice about bear encounters. For the most part I've camped and paddled in places where the "bear situation" is usually less serious in the sense that there are no grizzlies. (In Algonquin and LaVenrendrie parks in Canada there are "brown bears" - grizzlies - but in NY state and Maine, there are only black bears as far as I know). However, in many of these places there are many, many black bears, some of which are habituated to humans, and to having human campsites as a source of food. I've never heard of a black bear attacking a person or campsite because of a menstruating woman; I've read that grizzles have done that on occasion. In several hundred nights of camping, I've had three close bear encounters. On one occasion when when I was young (this is quite a long time ago) and even stupider than I am now, there was food in the camp, a black bear came into the camp during the night, but left promptly when I banged on a pot. On two other occasions, I or one of my children came across a bear on a trail. Neither of these two bears was at all interested in the humans. Bears around central NY have become a real nuisance in some areas, because of careless campers and because there are open garbage dumps in some townships. They have been known to drive campers from their campsites. If a bear were at all persistent, black bear or not, I'd leave my campsite and gear to the bear. These days I make quite a practice of cooking 100 yds or so from camp, not bringing any food at all into the tent, hanging food or if there are no trees, covering the food in a plastic tarp and spraying the tarp heavily with mosquito repellent. I've been very lucky - have never lost any food or gear. When hiking, I (we) try to make lots of noise, though we avoid those "bear bells" which one sees so often in parks in the western US. Black bears, treated with respect, are unlikely to be dangerous. Brown bears are completely unpedictable, but are usually quite shy of humans. When camping out west or in Alaska, I've considered myself lucky to see brown bears at a distance. Bill Hansen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Aug 18 1999 - 04:28:20 PDT
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