Re: [Paddlewise] Bear idiot

    Just picked up a story about Treadwell; he was on the Letterman show a
number of years ago and describes Alaskan brown bears as "mostly harmless
party animals."
    Such attitude about bears will eventually get you killed. Even though I
have been around a lot of bears and no longer fear them, I still view each
bear as "a wild animal that could be dangerous".

Several years ago in Alaska on Kootznooowhoo Island a man named Stan Price
homesteaded at Pack creek. He came to know the bears by name since he had
seen most of them raised as cubs. he rarely carried a gun preferring instead
a walking stick. If a bear gave him trouble he hit it on the nose with his
stick and yelled at them by name. If one was in his potato garden he used a
shovel. Finally a bear did maul him and Stan's explination was that this was
a bear he had never seen before. My point is that even the those who know
bears best occasionally run into the unexected situation and some live and
some don't. A common line in bear stories I hear is "all at once" meaning
the bear did something unexpected.
My guess is that Treadwell predicted a bears behavior and the bear fooled
him.

By the way two bears have been killed as a result of this. First was the
bear that was standing over the bodies when they were found. Later a younger
bear was killed as it approached the troopers as they were recovering the
bodies. Both bears showed a great deal of aggression.  I will render a guess
that with the salmon tailing off these bears have begun looking for other
sources of food and if stress will prey on humans. Since there were no
witness we may never know.
Our prayers go out to the victims families.


Bob


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