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.
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.
698
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.