Bears - Precautions

[+AV Dezign]

.....Worried about bears in your area? Read these precautions.

 

Canada's British Columbia and Alberta Departments of Fish and Wildlife, are advising hikers, hunters, fishers, and golfers to take extra precautions and keep alert for bears while in the forested areas.

 

They advise people to wear noise-producing devices such as little bells on their clothing to alert but not startle the bears unexpectedly.

 

They also advise carrying of pepper spray in case of an encounter with a bear.

 

It is also a good idea to watch for fresh signs of bear activity. People should recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings.

 

Black bear droppings are smaller and contain berries and possibly squirrel fur.

 

Grizzly bear droppings have little bells in them and smell like pepper spray.

 

[+Old Sailor]

and for you golfers, just let them play through!!!

[danoshimano]

More importantly, learn to recognize the difference between a black bear and grizzly bear itself, especially if you plan to climb a tree to escape an aggressive bear.

 

If the bear follows you up the tree, it's a black bear.

 

If the bear simply pushes the tree over, with you in it, that would be a grizzly.

 

On a more serious note, there is a group size that has never been attacked by a bear (I'm thinking grizzlys now). If I recall correctly, it is five. That is, groups of 5 or more people are never attacked. Groups of 3-4 would also stand a good chance of scaring off a grizzly if they all stick together.

[+parker2]

While caching and hiking (or almost any trip), I carry a can of bear spray. I also have a bear bell (w/ silencer for muggles) on my caching pack.

Anyone venturing outdoors, away from populated places should travel with a couple of people, and carry everything and anything that "MIGHT" be needed for that just in case situation.

 

parker2

[+AV Dezign]

While caching and hiking (or almost any trip), I carry a can of bear spray. I also have a bear bell (w/ silencer for muggles) on my caching pack.

Anyone venturing outdoors, away from populated places should travel with a couple of people, and carry everything and anything that "MIGHT" be needed for that just in case situation.

 

parker2

everything and anything needed? With some people that includes way too much, I would need to carry three backpacks to get everything my girl would want to have along.

 

It all comes from how we grew up with camping. For me it was walking as far away from civilisation as possible and setting up camp with tents and living off the land as best we could. For my life partner it was campers, parks, acces to everything, beach and so on.

 

We never see eye to eye about what to bring, my take on it is, whatever I see has overflow (Hibachi, Chairs, etc.), she can carry it.

 

JUST KIDDING LOVE!!!

(I'll just lose them along the way, oups, where did that leather bond edition of LOTR go?)

[+northernpenguin]

I remember a time when I had a group of about 7 of us hiking the Bruce Trail near Orangeville, Ontario.

About halfway on our 24 km hike we came across a black bear cub on the trail, and momma was nowhere to be seen.

 

Just think about how some of the hikers felt when the german sheperd with us took off after that bear cub and treed it . Needless to say, the rest of us cleared outta there in a hurry and we bought the guy a leash for his dog when we got back to town!

[+eranou]

WOW, i'm glad we don't have to worry about bears in the UK!!

Anyone had any real close encounters with bears? And escaped unscathed?

[+PDOP's]

Anyone had any real close encounters with bears? And escaped unscathed?

While caching I saw this one which was harmless as encounters go. Once while working in the bush I was charged by a black bear which stopped about 10 metres away from me, stood up on it's hind legs and looked at me for a minute before wandering away. That got my attention

[where the wild things are]

Hi everyone! It's my first post on these forums. I just thought I would share with you all my bear experience that happened today. We live in B.C. so what with school being out I had 6 kids caching with me today (2 are mine the other 4 are friends). We found a couple then I really wanted to place a new one. I am always aware of bears and there are some places I won't cache without my DH but I felt totally comfortable going out on this trail which was very close to civilization.

 

So we placed the cache then headed back toward the car. The two older girls were about 20 paces ahead of the rest of us. Then one of them started walking back toward me and said "I saw a Bear!" At first I thought she was joking. Then I thought she was imagining things. But I looked again and sure enough here comes a big lumbering black bear only a couple hundred feet away from us.

 

Needless to say we turned around and quickly, (very quickly) went back down the trail and took another route back to the car. Only after did we laugh but at the time we were all a little freaked out. We also realized that we probably shouldn't have ran but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

 

Anyways, thats one of the great things about geocaching. We could have stayed home and cleaned the house or watched tv but instead we went caching and we had a bit of adventure. Theres nothing like bonding with the kids while running from a bear. And the kids will have something very exciting to write in their journals when they go back to school!