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 the dangers of wild animals while out hiking
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AcesHigh
Advanced Member


Hope, BC
Canada

7131 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  12:05 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by time2clmb

quote:
I bought a slighly beefier bell and wore it doing solo layout and never had anything nasty


I don't wear bells and have never run into any thing nasty, solo or otherwise. To say you wear bells, and have never had an encounter doesn't really mean anything as to the bells effectiveness.



Everytime I take my BFK the bears don't screw with me
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Sodbuster
Senior Member


High River, (just south of Calgary eh!), Alberta
Canada

1718 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  07:37 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:

Everytime I take my BFK the bears don't screw with me

Bear attacks at Tim Hortons are pretty rare eh.

Ryan & MJB, thanks for the laugh.
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AcesHigh
Advanced Member


Hope, BC
Canada

7131 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  08:36 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Sodbuster

quote:

Everytime I take my BFK the bears don't screw with me

Bear attacks at Tim Hortons are pretty rare eh.

Ryan & MJB, thanks for the laugh.



Hahahaha Thanks Sodbuster for the laugh too

cambium
Advanced Member



3022 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  11:58 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I wouldn't open my windows then at the drive-thru. Come to think of it I don't do
drive thru.


______________________________________________________

On another note going back to lingering Bear spray scent attracting bears , could be

due to fact that bears are observed to eat Odd things, plants that are either toxic

to us and known to have extreme medicinal properties. Female bears have been observed

eating devil's club berries , known for potential potent gynealogical cures. My

belief is that bears have an intuitive concept of beneficial plants. Any one here

ever sample devil club berries ? Yuk ! Capsaicin , one ingredient in peppers

is shown in studies to be very beneficial for the male-prostate gland and for the

heart muscle. I suspect that the intuitive bear may be drawn to this scent .

One of my older hobbies was to follow and track black bears discretely to watch them

do what ever they do. Pretty neat stuff.

Mauricio
Intermediate Member


Vancouver, BC
Canada

548 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  3:37 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Sodbuster

Bear attacks at Tim Hortons are pretty rare eh.



Subway is a different matter, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjrI5ELkj3Y

Edited by - Mauricio on 06/11/2009 3:49 PM

Mauricio
Intermediate Member


Vancouver, BC
Canada

548 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  3:40 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
While on this topic, a former US ranger at Denali National Park told me that, if hiking in pairs and encountering a moose, an effective defense is for the hiking partners to run in opposite directions. Apparently moose are so dumb that they can't pick which person to go after, and remain frozen in place. Can anybody confirm this?
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AcesHigh
Advanced Member


Hope, BC
Canada

7131 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  4:02 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Too funny Mauricio, gonna have to carry bfk to subway now lol.
I am unsure about the moose confusion question, but... I like hearing bear bells just as much as I like hearing someone jingling their change in their pocket, NOT.
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The Hiker
Advanced Member

Fleece thong wearin, Buntzen Lurkin, mystic poet mountain man and international spokesman of the friends of the white squirrel society

Port Moody, B.C.
Canada

5942 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  4:37 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
There was a report in the local papers that 4 bears have gone into houses in the area. Last week I had one on my back deck. I was lying on my sofa watching TV and thought it was a dog at first. Then he tried to open my BBQ. So my options were; Slingshot with a ball bearing to the butt, bear spray, bear banger. I yelled and he looked at me as if to say so ????
I went upstairs with a 5 gal pal, filled it in the bathroom and dumped it on his head.
This served to get rid of the bear, wash my BBQ AND water the plants. Id call it a successful encounter.
Note snakes cant hear bells

cambium
Advanced Member



3022 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  6:48 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Give the bear a subway loaded with jalepenos and mustard , horse radish to go.

Hhmmm. yum . :o)

the743
Intermediate Member


n van, bc
Canada

830 Posts

 Posted - 06/11/2009 :  10:19 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by time2clmb

quote:
I bought a slighly beefier bell and wore it doing solo layout and never had anything nasty


I don't wear bells and have never run into any thing nasty, solo or otherwise. To say you wear bells, and have never had an encounter doesn't really mean anything as to the bells effectiveness.



Very true. I don't wear a bear bell. I think bears would have an easier time associating a person's voice or movement than hearing the random chiming, and becoming curious or something. I guess that hunch is totally up for debate. I meet lots of people who hike solo not wearing bear bells. When bear encounters come up if they're curious about bear spray, a lot of them have never had a bear encounter.

When it comes to bear safety, I don't know what to say about the animals other than they are opportunistic feeders. Older and/or injured animals.... This is only true with black bears though.

Then again, they can definitely strike fear into me when I see them a bit too close for comfort. This is because the bear encounters are actual encounters. They're not always afraid of people, unlike smaller wild animals and do not always run. Then again, this is probably because I hike mainly on the north shore, where everyone leaves a garbage buffet for them.

On an side-note, a lot of people in the interior are scared of black bears, while I, a coastal person, am afraid of grizzly bears.

Edited by - the743 on 06/11/2009 10:24 PM

Andrew Strain
Intermediate Member


Whistler, BC
Canada

631 Posts

 Posted - 06/13/2009 :  01:53 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote


order of places i prefer to see grizzlies:

1)from the helicopter
2)movie/photo
3)from the truck
4)zoo
5)never
.
..
...
6)dead
7)in the field

these ones were from the truck, on the drive home from whitehorse tonight.


Edited by - Andrew Strain on 06/13/2009 01:54 AM

Mauricio
Intermediate Member


Vancouver, BC
Canada

548 Posts

 Posted - 06/13/2009 :  6:09 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
You did an amazing job capturing the sow's expression and managing the difficult lighting in those pictures, Andrew.

cambium
Advanced Member



3022 Posts

 Posted - 06/17/2009 :  1:08 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Another report of a cougar attack yesterday, someplace called brackendale. A 3yr.old picking
berries with mom suffered puncture wounds but expected to be okay. That is apparently the
six one this year in b.c. As a footnote, an article in national geographic a few years ago
reported that on an aggression scale vancouver island cougars are # 1 , and texas cougars
are # 2.

Edited by - cambium on 06/17/2009 1:08 PM

RobP
Starting Member


Terrace, B.C.
Canada

21 Posts

 Posted - 06/17/2009 :  2:22 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
......a cougar was seen in White Rock this morning---she turned three young boys into men before she was tranquilized and transported back to the wild.


RobP

KARVITK
Advanced Member

Happy go lucky, plaid wearin, postholin, safeway gaitor sportin, old-school film shootin, giver of many regards

Abbotsford, B.C.
Canada

13598 Posts

 Posted - 06/17/2009 :  4:05 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by RobP

......a cougar was seen in White Rock this morning---she turned three young boys into men before she was tranquilized and transported back to the wild.


RobP



On a white rock wild in the prairie no doubt.

K

cambium
Advanced Member



3022 Posts

 Posted - 06/18/2009 :  12:16 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Thankyou for heads up RobP.

Andrew Strain
Intermediate Member


Whistler, BC
Canada

631 Posts

 Posted - 07/01/2009 :  5:41 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
For what its worth, I yelled at a black bear for 5 minutes yesterday with no reaction... shook a bear bell at it for a couple seconds and it took off like an elephant was charging it.
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Farmer
Advanced Member

Outward Bound author of the Seinfeld Thread, who builds his own snowshoes

Troy, MT
USA

3140 Posts

 Posted - 07/01/2009 :  8:27 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
personally, I'm not a huge fan of ear sprak. I've heard more stories of people accidentally spraying themselves, or their packs, or their car, than people actually useing it on a bear. I carry bangers.

quote:
Originally posted by Irkutianin


Could anyone tell me where can I get a bear bangers?



Cost mountain sells a kit w./ 6 banger and 6 flares, plus a launcher, in a nylon pouch that wil fit on a hip belt for about $60, which, if you buy the flares, launcher and bangers seperatly, they will come close to that. this way I can keep them close at hand, instead of having to dig into my pac or something.


as a side note, where do people carry their launcher and bangers while they hike?
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ChuckLW
Advanced Member

Night owl posting,Subie driving, backpacking Dad who is perpetually trying to catch up to his kids on the trail.

Vancouver, BC
Canada

3064 Posts

 Posted - 07/01/2009 :  11:51 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:


as a side note, where do people carry their launcher and bangers while they hike?



I carry mine with a banger mounted in the launcher with the firing pin in the safety position. I have the launcher either in a shirt pocket or in a small bandolier on my right-hand shoulder pack strap. Instant access is the key.

I also carry bear spray in a holster or side pack pocket that can be reached while wearing the pack. All spray canisters I have seen have a "safety" piece of plastic that has to be removed before it can be triggered. You would have to be very careless or clumsy to manage to fire it off unintentionally.
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Ryan.in.yaletown
Advanced Member


Van, BC
Canada

2841 Posts

 Posted - 07/02/2009 :  12:18 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:


as a side note, where do people carry their launcher and bangers while they hike?



Pin in the safety position, banger screwed on, launcher clipped to the chest strap of my pack. Spare bangers and the flares are in my left hip strap pocket (I love that feature on Gregory packs).

MEC also sells launcher/banger/flare packages - 3 flares, 2 bangers and the pen launcher I believe.

And my pepper spray has a 'safety' clip that prevents accidential depression of the trigger, and the clip is tightly zip tied to the canister itself. I can't imagine how I could discharge it by accident.

-Ryan
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