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Grizzley Man


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I know this has been somewhat beat to no end, however, I just watched the movie "Grizzley Man" and I must say, Treadwell was a freaking nut job. Anyone here cached up in the Kodiak region of Alaska? I believe that was were the documentary was filmed. It seemed like there was a Grizzley bear around every corner. Curious, how many people have actually encountered (or seen from a distance) a bear while geocaching. Do not count the times you've seen a bear while hiking, hunting, or fishing ... only while geocaching.

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I know this has been somewhat beat to no end, however, I just watched the movie "Grizzley Man" and I must say, Treadwell was a freaking nut job. Anyone here cached up in the Kodiak region of Alaska? I believe that was were the documentary was filmed. It seemed like there was a Grizzley bear around every corner. Curious, how many people have actually encountered (or seen from a distance) a bear while geocaching. Do not count the times you've seen a bear while hiking, hunting, or fishing ... only while geocaching.

 

Discussion and grief over here.

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I have. Bears are like giant rats in NJ. THey are all over the place. My favorite picture comes from Team Rampant Lion's log on this cache, which is a barely a mile from my house

(and the first cache I ever found). He was signing the log

and looked up to see this:

 

d9a92ba1-0de2-4b48-8c2a-e9b050fb120c.jpg

Edited by briansnat
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OK, so Team Rampant Lion's made the photograph, but I'm not going to delete my previous post. :D

 

I saw what had to be a bear track once, while caching in West Virginia. I have seen bears at other times, and I admit that it scared the *what bears do in the woods* out of me! :D:huh:

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I know this has been somewhat beat to no end, however, I just watched the movie "Grizzley Man" and I must say, Treadwell was a freaking nut job. Anyone here cached up in the Kodiak region of Alaska? I believe that was were the documentary was filmed. It seemed like there was a Grizzley bear around every corner. Curious, how many people have actually encountered (or seen from a distance) a bear while geocaching. Do not count the times you've seen a bear while hiking, hunting, or fishing ... only while geocaching.

 

Does a steaming pile of Bear Skat count?

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We have yet to encounter a bear while caching but we run into them almost every time we go to the Adirondacks, which is often. The Adirondacks have the largest population of black bear in all of New York. Two summers ago we seen two fat little cubs rolling around on the ground. We observed this from a distance to minimize the risk that Momma may not take kindly to our presence. They are beautiful animals.

Edited by The Mighty Nimbus
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About a month ago I was teaching the wife how to use the new Garmin, we were about a mile back in on the trail when a big bear appeared on the trail in front of us. I turned and started to run like hell, I guess the wife was so engrossed in looking at the gps to see where we should go that she didn't notice the bear. Well I waited at the car for about two hours and she never showed up. I sure am going to miss that new Garmin.

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I grew up in Nome Alaska, one year there was a Polar bear just outside of town (Less then 1/2 mile) and I'v seen a few alaskan grizzlys but never felt like I was in danger. My mom and Dad however were boating a river outside of Nome and as they rounded a bend there was a mother and her cubs fishing in the middle of the river, Dad said he was unnerved enough to draw his .44 but never had to fire.

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<<<<<<< personal attack and profanity deleted >>>>>>>>
<<<<< Political attacks against the liberal media deleted>>>>>>
<<<< Nasty references to Criminal deleted>>>>>

 

Congratulations Brian, with the above unnecessary posts, you have achieved the 'Top Poster Of The Day'. :D

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About a month ago I was teaching the wife how to use the new Garmin, we were about a mile back in on the trail when a big bear appeared on the trail in front of us. I turned and started to run like hell, I guess the wife was so engrossed in looking at the gps to see where we should go that she didn't notice the bear. Well I waited at the car for about two hours and she never showed up. I sure am going to miss that new Garmin.

 

Thats sad, those things are expensive!

You know if he swallowed it whole you could possibly get it back. May have to hose it off a bit.

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I've told this story before but since you ask....This past fall I was out placing a cache. I had 6 kids with me. We had walked past an old abandoned orchard where I noticed some black bear skat but I didn't think much of it. That was my first mistake.

 

We continued on, placed the cache and headed back. Two of the older kids were ahead of us then they came back and said very calmly 'theres a bear up there'. I thought they were just kidding with me so at first I didn't believe them. Then, about 300 feet away a bear walked around the corner. I stood there for a second, trying to decide what to do.

 

So here comes my second mistake.... I looked at the kids and said "Run!" We all turned and ran like heck back down the trail and walked back to the car on the road. Once we got into the car the kids said "I thought you weren't supposed to run from a bear Mom!!!!" Which is true, but in this particular case I thought it best to get as much distance between us and him. Plus, I can run faster than most of the kids. :D

 

Needless to say they didn't want to go caching in the bush for awhile......

Edited by where the wild things are
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This topic pops up every now & then, doesn't it?

 

criminal's link to the thread on Treadwell provides a must-read for folks who want to 'anthropomorphise' bears - they're animals, not humans. Most Alaskans resent folks like Treadwell whose ongoing idiotic behavior at some point or another ends up putting someone else at risk.

 

I encountered bears inside the city limits (well inside!) here in Anchorage twice last year while caching - once at thirty yards, and once at thirty feet. I described those encounters here on a thread about 'Firearms and caching'... Lots of rhetoric about bears out there... meet them up close and you'll suddenly wonder if all the excellent advice you read in places like the Alaska Dept of Fish & Game Bear Info page or the Alaska State Parks bear info page are going to apply in your now very lonely and scary moment!

 

I've met quite a few bears hunting or hiking in my nearly thirty years of Alaskan residency - almost all of them fit the profiles described by the biologists. The several who didn't were black bears that displayed intense curiousity - and made me very very nervous. As for their strength - yeah, brown bears have been known to kill cattle on Kodiak Island with a big swat to the head (breaking their neck), but look at the musculature of a black bear when he's skinned out, and you realize he's nothing to go hand to hand with either. Remember, as with mountain lions, it's not necessarily the bear you see that's going to be the problem...

 

As you're far more likely to encounter moose or especially loose (and impolite) dogs here in Alaska while geocaching, it's good to be alert (not locked on the GPSr) and to have a plan for those animal encounters. Me - I carry a walking stick for the dogs, and a discreetly hidden firearm in a fanny pack holster for the others. In some areas (such as when I check on my cache at 'Three Forks of the Montana', where lots of folks crack up at the hand-lettered sign warning about 'hiking bears' - not realizing the trail is used heavily in late fall by bears foraging along the salmon stream...) I may upgrade to a rifle or shotgun in the summer. Others are comfortable just armed with knowledge and perhaps pepper spray... Whatever you do, don't think 'Grizzly Man' Treadwell had the right answer for the long run - the law of averages caught up with him in the form of an animal whose prey-hunting behavior finally kicked in and 'tested' if Treadwell was prey - or a predator nasty enough to be left alone.

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Timothy Treadwell was not a "Freaking Nut Job". He was doing what he saw as the right thing to do; attempting to save and protect the bears. The wilderness was his escape, and the bears his saviors from the formalities of human existance. The year after he died, poaching in the area skyrocketed. In his 13 years there, no bears were killed.

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I saw a black bear while hiding a cache a year and change back...he waddled across the trail, paused to look at me for a minute, and then trundled off into the woods again...I love living in the ADKs!

 

Jamie

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Timothy Treadwell was not a "Freaking Nut Job". He was doing what he saw as the right thing to do; attempting to save and protect the bears. The wilderness was his escape, and the bears his saviors from the formalities of human existance. The year after he died, poaching in the area skyrocketed. In his 13 years there, no bears were killed.

 

Treadwell was a nut job. Though his goals were admirable and his presence reduced poaching, almost every expert told him that what he was doing was wrong. Nearly anybody who knows anything about bears agrees that worst thing humans can do is to acclimate them to human presence. I wonder how many of the bears that were poached became easy victims because they lost their waryness of humans thanks to Treadwell.

 

In NJ there was a kid who was attacked by a bear. He was hiking with his father, who used donuts to draw the bear closer and get some photos. The bear was so happy with the donuts that when the family returned down the trail, it was waiting there for them and went after the kid. The end result was that the bear was tracked down and destroyed.

 

The "anthropomorphisation of bears" is an issue. In NJ the idea of a bear hunt to reduce the population to keep it in line with available habitat has met with major resistance. The opponents of the hunt try to portray bears as Winnie the Pooh and won't admit that they are wild and potentially dangerous animals.

 

In reality they often kill pets and farm animals here and the idea that some kid playing in his backyard might be a victim is not that outrageous. In fact less than 50 miles from where I live, an infant was dragged away and killed by a bear a few years ago.

 

Bears are beautiful amimals and a healthy population of them is an important part of our ecosystem, but they really don't belong rooting through garbage in suburban backyards and wandering city streets.

Edited by briansnat
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Timothy Treadwell was not a "Freaking Nut Job". He was doing what he saw as the right thing to do; attempting to save and protect the bears. The wilderness was his escape, and the bears his saviors from the formalities of human existance. The year after he died, poaching in the area skyrocketed. In his 13 years there, no bears were killed.

As I said in another post, "If anybody needed to get eaten by anything, it was Treadwell." I feel bad about the bears that had to be destroyed BECAUSE of him, not in spite of him. Its lunatic fanatics like him that do more harm then good to whatever their cause, be it animal rights, abortion or religion. I respect what he wanted, I want the bears to be safe and left alone as well but not to the extent that I am willing to become a joke as well as the cause of their death. His plight was just, his methodoligy was flawed, He was a "Freaking Nut Job". Edited by MT CatRancher
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I've only been caching since August and have not seen a bear while caching. However, I've seen plenty of sign, and bears are not uncommonly sighted by cachers in the area. One of the WMAs where I have a cache placed had a bear sighting this past fall.

 

That said, on the morning of 11/02 this past fall I had an intimate encounter of my own, LOL

 

f56f90aa-7461-4648-8d90-802d1315d68b.jpg

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I've only been caching since August and have not seen a bear while caching. However, I've seen plenty of sign, and bears are not uncommonly sighted by cachers in the area. One of the WMAs where I have a cache placed had a bear sighting this past fall.

 

That said, on the morning of 11/02 this past fall I had an intimate encounter of my own, LOL

 

f56f90aa-7461-4648-8d90-802d1315d68b.jpg

 

So cool. I've never encountered a SLEEPING bear before.

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I've only been caching since August and have not seen a bear while caching. However, I've seen plenty of sign, and bears are not uncommonly sighted by cachers in the area. One of the WMAs where I have a cache placed had a bear sighting this past fall.

 

That said, on the morning of 11/02 this past fall I had an intimate encounter of my own, LOL

 

f56f90aa-7461-4648-8d90-802d1315d68b.jpg

 

Don't tell me you bow hunt bear with only ONE arrow in your quiver! :laughing:

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I've only been caching since August and have not seen a bear while caching. However, I've seen plenty of sign, and bears are not uncommonly sighted by cachers in the area. One of the WMAs where I have a cache placed had a bear sighting this past fall.

 

That said, on the morning of 11/02 this past fall I had an intimate encounter of my own, LOL

 

f56f90aa-7461-4648-8d90-802d1315d68b.jpg

 

Don't tell me you bow hunt bear with only ONE arrow in your quiver! :lol:

 

That's confidence.

 

B):laughing:

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Don't tell me you bow hunt bear with only ONE arrow in your quiver! :lol:

 

well, there's only one left

 

Actually, I had three in the quiver, and used one on the bear. I returned to the truck to drop off some gear before returning to pack out the bear. I took my bow along for the picture and just grabbed the arrow I used on the bear.

 

I guess it does look kind of funny in the picture. :laughing:

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I've only been caching since August and have not seen a bear while caching. However, I've seen plenty of sign, and bears are not uncommonly sighted by cachers in the area. One of the WMAs where I have a cache placed had a bear sighting this past fall.

 

That said, on the morning of 11/02 this past fall I had an intimate encounter of my own, LOL

 

f56f90aa-7461-4648-8d90-802d1315d68b.jpg

 

I'm not trying to be a jerk, here, but can you please tell me just what you got out of killing that bear? Are you trying to exert your dominance over Nature? Is there something psychological about it? It can't be for the target practice, you could do that in some sort of training facility? It can't be for the meat, there's tons of that in the grocery store already. It cant' be for the pelt, synthetics are cheaper and easier to acquire. So what' the point of hunting, at RANGE, an animal that has no ranged defense?

 

Again, I'm not trying to be a mime, I'm honestly curious why in this day and age people feel the need to kill living, breathing creatures when self defense isn't at issue.

 

Best,

Mr. Wisearse.

Edited by CYBret
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Again, I'm not trying to be a mime, I'm honestly curious why in this day and age people feel the need to kill living, breathing creatures when self defense isn't at issue.

 

Best,

Mr. Wisearse.

 

....uh...'cause you can't make bear jerky out of pork?

Edited by CYBret
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I'm honestly curious why in this day and age people feel the need to kill living, breathing creatures when self defense isn't at issue.

It's a good way to control animal populations. When one animal group becomes to prevalent, it can cause most of the other animal groups to suffer in different ways. Hunting is one way (the best way) to control over population.

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