How to scare a bear

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Harrison

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Asking for a friend (we don't have bears where I live).

How, or what do you do, to scare off a grizzly, or large black bear that you might encounter while hiking?
 
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When I am hiking in bear or moose country, and don't want any surprises, I whistle a tune, or sing to myself. Does not always scare off a bear, but lets him know you are coming, and minimizes the chances of surprising him. To the same end, some hikers who cant carry a tune wear bells.

Larry
 
Make noise so as not to surprise a bear. Wear a bell. Talk a lot and loud. Do not eat food while hiking. Make sure all food (smells) are well packaged. Unless they are surprised, protecting cubs or very hungry, most bears will be long gone before any encounter.

If one can't do these things, carry a 12 gauge with slugs. If one won't do that, then accept that one is in the grizzly's habitat at a severe disadvantage, and prepare to be eaten.

Or don't go there.
 
Harrison said:
Asking for a friend (we don't have bears where I live).

How, or what do you do, to scare off a grizzly, or large black bear that you might encounter while hiking?
Click to expand...


I carry a large picture of my MIL, that will scare anything away.:D


Talk a lot even if your alone it gives a long alert that you in the area and most bears will fade away.

Just yesterday I open my side door and there was a bear ambling up the driveway. (yearling) As soon as he heard it shifted gears and headed quickly to the wooded area behind the house.
 
I don't think there is any such thing as scaring a big Grizzly.

My experience is that they are always angry and looking for a fight. They appear to me to be mad dawg crazy. Their speed and quickness is phenomenal.

You can let them know you're coming and that will avoid surprises, but I'm guessing that just makes some of them curious.

I lived in Montana backcountry for years and acceptance is the only word to describe my feelings.

I accept that it is their home. I accept that they are tougher than me. I accept that I could die. If you don't believe all three, you shouldn't be in bear country.

Prescut
 
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Bring a mutt with you.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1q63v6Dd3c"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1q63v6Dd3c[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAl7pGve2Aw"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAl7pGve2Aw[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhRYH5X7oes"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhRYH5X7oes[/ame]
 
Most black bears are gone if they know you are around or when you see them...and vice versa. Grizzlies will sometimes leave the area if they know you are in the area...in places where they are hunted anyway. Not so much in the area where I live. They seem to own the area here. As one poster said...shotgun...slugs...know how to use 'em...best is to stay out of their area as they are not easily scared. I on the other hand am as they are bigger and meaner than me and am ALWAYS armed in grizz country with one of the firearms pictured...preferably the Benelli shotgun.

Also have to say...dogs seem to enrage grizzlies quite often....and then run back to their owners looking to be saved...ummmm
 

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Having spent considerable time tramping around in the woods, I have
encountered quite a few bears. Mostly all the black variety. I have found
that black bears have a natural fear of humans and will usually get out as
soon as they hear you coming. Unless you happen to come between a
mama bear and her cubs. That is a game changer.
Brown bears, on the other hand, have no fear of humans. There are some
grizzly's in Idaho now. Mostly up around Yellowstone Park. Most times
humans encounter brown bears, the human looses. Best policy, if you
know brown bears are in the area, just don't go there.
 
On our Alaska river trips the brown bears couldn't be avoided. We were sharing the same food source, salmon. There were plenty of of salmon so it never developed into a contest.
On most every encounter they would leave the area when they spotted us.
Some would leave a little slower than others giving us the evil eye as they left. They were upset that we interrupted their feeding but none were ever aggressive.
Only once while rounding a bend and coming face to face with a sow with Cubs was I nervous. She stood up when she saw us but the Cubs ran off into the trees and she decided to follow them rather than confront us.
We were always armed up with .44s/12 ga shotguns and a 45-70 but never needed to use them.
 
When I would visit relatives in Kalispell Montana they always carried a boom box blasting rap music...claimed it would scare the hell out of anything man or beast.

Actually they did have the same thing as others mention about making noise because startling a bear can end badly for both and the bears most likely would leave the area if they knew you were there and that we would be the intruders in the house of the animal.
 
As far as black bears I've always heard if you do surprise them then wave your arms, pull your coat out to make yourself look bigger and make noise. when it walks away you do the same. In the opposite direction.
If you are attacked you fight back on a black bear.
Play dead on a grizzly.
 
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meaneyedcatz said:
As far as black bears I've always heard if you do surprise them then wave your arms, pull your coat out to make yourself look bigger and when it walks away you do the same. In the opposite direction.
If you are attacked you fight back on a black bear.
Play dead on a grizzly.
Click to expand...

In a situation with a female black bear protecting her cubs, I would play dead. Such "attacks" usually result in a cuff or a bite, then the bear makes tracks with her cubs.

Black bears without cubs who attack are often predatory in nature, and you should fight back. They plan on eating you.....

Larry
 
My mother used to beat on a large kettle with a ladle to announce our presence.


I used to take a trombone with me camping. Amazing what a few blasts and slide rips will drive out of the area.


(Maybe that's why we never saw many deer....)
 
On a tour of Alaska, in the outskirts of Heider, on a salmon run, I overheard a tourist, ask an Alaskan game warden if he carried his 12ga. Shotgun to protect the tourists from the bears? The warden jokingly replied, "No, to protect the bears from the tourists". The warden then correctly explained, that a, 12ga., Rifled slug, fired into the midriff of a charging bear, would either kill the bear, or change it's whole his way of thinking, concerning its charge, and thus stop the charge. That warden also squelched the old myth that; Grisly, and black bears, never frequent the same territory. In fact, there are about the same number.
 
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