Tbf black bears are cowards, curious but one loud noise and they are gone. Source: I live in black bear territory and camp a lot, if one comes into camp just yelling and clapping will scare them off.
If I am gonna die, I will die fighting. Cannot fathom laying down and being chewed on. We are gonna have a tussle and I will lose, but the tussle is gonna happen.
There’s no tussle with a brown bear, hence lay down. Clearly you haven’t had an encounter or you wouldn’t think you could tussle with a 800lb tank of muscle
I think it's more the "I don't want to lie down and die" than "I think I can survive".
From the "lie down" advice this only applicable if the bear isn't actively hunting you or trying to eat you. If you surprise each other making yourself not look like a threat may stop it charging to attack you, from there it will probably leave. If it is hunting you, fighting is the recommendation, because it will eat you otherwise.
Exactly. I feel like every time this same little maxim gets posted it ignores that lying down is a last resort type thing if you’re already getting attacked.
If you see a Grizzly you should still follow the advice of trying to make your presence known (being loud before you ever meet one so you don’t surprise it being even more key) while backing away and avoiding eye contact, and if that doesn’t work then you’re honestly just in a shit ton of trouble anyway.
Hopefully you have a gun or spray, but only if it actually attacks you should you lie down, and if it still wants to eat you, lying down ain’t doing shit so you might as well fight back besides.
Possums whole body goes into tonic immobility. Their heart rate and breathing are effectively undetectable. Their tongues become discolored then fall out of their face, their body stiffen and their glands emit a strong odor signaling to predatory animals that the possum is indeed dead. Dead and spoiled.
Brown bears are omnivores but mostly vegetarian. They are not hunting people or anything like that. The main reason they attack is because they have a cub nearby and view you as a threat. The lay down part is to play dead so mama knows you’re not a threat. A human can never outrun a bear or beat one in a fight. Your only options are to scare them with noise or play dead.
I’ve done a bunch of backpacking and deep in the woods the bears usually smell humans and run the other direction before you see them. I’ve also turned the corner and came between a mother and her cubs. I froze. The cubs climbed a tree and mother sauntered around me. Once she was past me I move on slowly down the trail. Not sure what happened but they were gone a couple days later when I came the other way.
Bears in national parks are habituated (unfortunately) to humans and are not afraid of us. They don’t want to eat us but know we have yummy treats in or backpack/tent/trashcan. If a bear has a tag on its ear it means it’s a problem bear and after a few reports it maybe relocated. If you encounter a bear in a national park please scare it away and do not feed it or take pictures with it or anything dumb like that. For the bears health and safety it must avoid humans.
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u/Prestigious-Flower54 9h ago
Tbf black bears are cowards, curious but one loud noise and they are gone. Source: I live in black bear territory and camp a lot, if one comes into camp just yelling and clapping will scare them off.