A Tale of Two Bints and a Bear
Posted By Randy on August 27, 2013
The stupidity of sending out trappers after a bear who did nothing except be a bear is unbelievable.
How about – if you’re going into bear country, expect to have a bear encounter. If you can’t handle that, DON’T GO WHERE BEARS LIVE!! And for fuck’s sake, wear something a little more appropriate on your feet than flip flops!! Flip flops belong on a beach, NOT in the woods. ~Mrs. LFM
Lindsay Jones (left) and Nikki Latta (right) are shown here sporting Bear paw tattoos they acquired to commemorate surviving their own monumental stupidity. My interpretation, not theirs. (Source – http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1149410-women-survive-encounter-with-relentless-black-bear)
The matter Mrs. LFM is referring to in the quotation at the top of this article is the most recent fallout from an incident that occurred here in Nova Scotia on the evening of Monday 19 August 2013 involving two clueless women and a Black Bear. You can get the gist by reading articles here and here.
It remains to be seen how this will play out, but it’s refreshing to note that news reports clearly state that none of the injuries suffered by the two women involved were inflicted by the Bear, but rather by their reactions to what it was doing; i. e., following them. Descriptions of their actions in the wake of first noticing the Bear’s presence imply, at least to me, that its interest was most likely due to what they were doing; i. e., running, screaming, and bleeding. In this, the incident is reminiscent of another incident I wrote about in my 22 September 2011 article titled How Tragically Refreshing!
In brief, that piece dealt with the fatal mauling by a Grizzly sow of 57 year old Brian Matayoshi who was hiking with his wife Marylyn in Yellowstone National Park when they encountered the Bear and her cubs. I invite you to read that piece in its entirety, but for our purposes here today, the relevant passage is a quote from news coverage stating what investigators believe might explain the lengthy pursuit:
...following a two-month investigation, bear researchers and wildlife agents concluded the couple’s harried, 173-yard retreat after they encountered the bear may have played a role.
“What possibly began as an attempt by the bear to assess the Matayoshis’ activities became a sustained pursuit of them as they fled running and yelling on the trail,” the investigation team report said.
Notwithstanding that the Yellowstone incident involved a Grizzly while the Bear implicated in the late Nova Scotian unpleasantness was of the Black variety, there is one common thread – running, screaming people.
The woods aren’t filled with frightening and unpredictable bears … the woods are filled with frightened and unpredictable people …. ~ Why we need to get over our fear of bears (As quoted in Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Bear Necessities)
That being the case, I find it hard to swallow the judgement of a Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources technician, quoted in the Herald News article, saying that the Bear’s behaviour in the recent event was in any way unusual, and put it more in the realm of what the hell did you think was going to happen?
A wildlife technician with the Natural Resources Department said Thursday that the bear that chased two Kingston women through the woods for an hour and then tried to get into a hunting shack where they sought refuge was not acting normally.
“That’s highly unusual,” Mike Boudreau said.
“They’re certainly dangerous animals and have to be dealt with respectfully, but that’s unusual,” he said of the black bear’s prolonged chase of the women.
This is entirely up the trail of another article published here on 2 June 2010 under the title Contemplations on a Really Bad Idea.
In this case, the LFM camp is firmly on the side of the Bear. Of the three creatures known to be involved, he or she was the only one who wasn’t in the forest by choice, and the one who showed the most restraint. If a Black Bear is bent on attacking you, nothing but fighting like your life depends on it will offer any hope of salvation. That’s because it does.
I hope those tattoos stung like a sonofabitch.
Those tattoos will be a reminder of their “surviving”a bear encounter by running down the trail screaming.Unbelievable.
Unbelievable but all too common Gary. These two are like the poster children for all that’s wrong with societal perceptions of risk and responsibility. That to be helpless and needful of being looked after by someone stronger and more capable than you represents a finished and noble state for most people.
Witness the words of Linsay Jones in the Chronicle Herald piece, describing the conditions under which she will consider making any future forays into the woods:
“Never in my life,” Jones said. “If I have someone with me who’s an experienced shooter, and has killed bears before, and has a gun, then maybe I’ll think about it. But not for a very, very, very long time. I’m not willing to take that chance again.”
So instead of seeking an understanding of how and why her own ignorance may have contributed the what was, undoubtedly, a hugely traumatic event for her, Ms. Jones settles on an ongoing need to be guarded with lethal force by someone, “… who’s an experienced shooter, and has killed bears before, and has a gun ….”
In the Wild, and by that I mean everywhere, there will occasionally arise a necessity to end an encounter with another living thing through the application of lethal force, but particularly when the other participant in the encounter is a wild animal, the likelihood of it coming to blows at all, let alone life ending ones, is minimal. The magic comes from knowing who else lives where you’re going, understanding how they live, and learning how not to act like a disrespectful interloper or a food source.
As an aside of no small consequence, if these two had been followed into the woods by one or more human predators with the kind of outcome in mind such ones tend toward, the total lack of situational awareness, zero preparation, and nonsensical choices with respect to accessorizing for the occasion would have ended the chase long before they made it to the cabin. And all the pursuer would need is a pair of cheap, well laced sneakers.
Well “Stupid is as stupid does”. I can’t say I’d expect much better from people who go out to paint art on the trees, as if their own additions could somehow improve on nature.
Randy hit the nail on the head. Know where you’re going and how to avoid trouble, prepare for the worst, and take responsability for yourself and your actions.
Well you're wrong about this I'm afraid. A black bear calmly following women down a trail for an extended time is something to be very, very afraid of. That's the classic scenario of a black bear predatory attack. Smaller woman, large black bear, and a seemingly calm but persistent approach. They were right to be terrified.
Thank you for your comment Greg, but you seem to have missed my point. A Black Bear IS a predator, and as such, EVERYTHING it does is as a predator would do. Its attention can get attracted, and therefore its predatory stalking behaviours brought to the fore, more easily when the object of its attention behaves in an attention getting manner. Screaming and running in the face of bruin or canine sets you up for a virtual guarantee of pursuit.
As to this being , “… the classic scenario of a black bear predatory attack ….”, I must take opposition to that; first on the grounds that such an assertion is dangerously simplistic, and secondly because an “attack” is only an attack if there is an actual attack. I still maintain that the behaviour of the two women involved was a major factor in the way this played out because it kept the Bear’s interest for over an hour during which it was, at times, at a distance of no more than, “… three or four feet …” according to the only human witnesses.
The women were barefoot, terrified, bleeding, and exhausted by the time their run to the cabin was half way through. This begs the question that, if this was in fact an exclusively predatory pursuit, what in hell was the Bear waiting for? If the descriptions provided by the two women are to be taken at face value, then it had ample opportunity to take at least one of them at any number of points between first encounter and their entering the cabin.
In truth, a Black Bear in August is acutely aware that it is on borrowed time to gain the body fat necessary to survive hibernation, and attack statistics indicate that the predatory side of the Black Bear is most often expressed at this time of year. Measured against this, an hour long ambling shuffle in trail of two running, screaming women speaks more to a waste of energy to satisfy curiosity rather than appetite.
Was it trying to make up its mind whether to attack or not? Which one to attack? We’ll never know, but we do know that it didn’t attack, and I take you again back to the original point – there is no surprise inherent in that a Bear acts like a Bear, and those who would share the same forest with that tribe need to study their neighbours and stop acting like this is Narnia.
They should have had my cat with them. She scares bears away. Haha.
With all due respect Mr. Henrikson, you're saying I'm wrong about something I never said. It was never about who was or should have been afraid of what, but rather about how much trouble can ensue from the actions of uneducated, unprepared people in Bear country. If the two women involved HADN'T been afraid, that would have been even more idiotic, but their default setting was running and screaming their way right out of the worst footwear they could have chosen – unarguably the BEST thing they could have done to catch and hold the interest of a top tier predator.
I'd ask that you do me the honour of rereading my article with this in mind, and while you're at it, clicking on the embedded supporting links throughout. I've also replied at greater length to your comment, and you might also find that informative.
I sense that you and I might be on the same wavelength, if not the same channel. In the end, Bears will be Bears, but the same can't always be said of Humans, the behaviour of which can be equally affected as much by what is imagined as by what IS.
Randy L. Whynacht I object to the Monday morning quarterbacking of an incident that could have gone much worse if these women hadn't gotten out of there. The idea that you should stand still and make noise applies to curious brown bear, not predatory black bear. And you're wrong about that black bear's behavior being normal. I've run into dozens of black bear over the years, and am very familiar with their habits. They don't follow people like that unless they're after food. Mr. Boudreau was correct.
I'm curious as to where, in your mind, the line is drawn between "Monday morning quarterbacking" and simple, rational evaluation of available evidence in the light of witness testimony, known participants, and incident outcomes.
OK Mr. Henrikson, obviously I've given you too much credit because you are clearly hell bent on objecting to issues that were never a part of my argument. At NO point did I make ANY reference, neither by direct statement nor by implication, that these two women should not have "… gotten out of there." I did not advocate that they should, "… stand still and make noise …", and I still stand by my statement that there was nothing surprising in the behaviour of the Black Bear in this case. You may disagree with me Mr. Henrikson, but that doesn't fit the definition of "wrong".
I am curious about the situations in which you have, "… run into dozens of black bear over the years …" and specifically how those alleged encounters have made you, "… very familiar with their habits." As a validation of superiority of argument, such a statement, absent qualifying details, is meaningless to the same degree that one might claim to be an expert on aviation safety because he has lived twenty years under the primary approach route of a major airport, and in that time witnessed three crashes. Speaking as one who has some small degree of demonstrated competence in the field of animal aggression and predatory response, I too have shared the same patch of the Earth with Black Bears on many more than one occasion, and will agree that they are mostly inclined to give me wide berth; as I will them, to a degree that is appropriate to the situation and our mutual reasons for being there in the first place. I've never been pursued at any speed, but then I don't act like something that needs to be chased down and eaten. This comes from knowledge, understanding, and personal preparation on my part, none of which is rocket science and both can, and indeed MUST, be learned by everyone who would go where Bears live.
This brings us to your final point – that Black Bears, "… don't follow people like that unless they're after food." You at least agree with me in this because – and I'll say it again since you obviously missed it the first two times – EVERYTHING these women did was virtually guaranteed to attract and hold the attention of a predator – bruin or canine. Bear (any species), Coyote, Wolf, and even a domestic Dog; ANY of those would have been attracted to pursue these women. But the one thing that takes this out of the realm of an attack is that the Bear NEVER attacked. I mention this again because, as seems the norm, you missed that point as well.
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