On 31 Oct 2003 at 19:27, Matt Broze wrote: > A WA Kayak Club member I know told me that on a (non-paddling) trip to > Churchill on Hudson's Bay he had fended off a Polar Bear using a can > of bear spray. The bear had come up to him when out walking solo > overland . He also reported that later a bear came into the compound > he was staying in and reached over onto a raised walkway from below > and tried to knock someone off his feet as he walked above. No way to > know if it was the same bear or not. One thing to note on polar bear behavior in Churchill vs the arctic - the bears are more accustomed to people. They are garbage-dump bears and nuisance bears that have become used to seeing people. There are tundra buggy bear-watching tours as well. In Churchill, the polar bears are part of the tourist trade. They may be more like rural black bears in behavior than wilderness polar bears. I don't know if bear spray would be as effective on a wilderness polar bear. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Nov 03 2003 - 09:40:36 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:10 PDT