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Here’s A Quick Lesson On Why You Should Never, Ever Approach A Bear - CELEBAND
A woman in Romania tried to nab a quick photo with a wild bear. The bear had other plans. The footage captured last week in Bacău showed the woman inching closer to the bear while someone nearby attempted to take a photo. The bear suddenly lunged forward and the woman ran. The unnamed person...
celeband.com
I think the best part of the article is the last sentence. " By December, local officials claimed that 8 people had been killed by bears during the year, leading to calls for more aggressive population control measures."
Excuse me, but population control measures appear to already be in place. Dumbasse vs bear; natural selection.
Running a pack station in bear country it has always been interesting to me how bears operate. As seen in that video they almost always issue that challenge. They may repeat this challenge several times. The common follow up is the prey getting startled and running. That's the perfect bad move. A bear can match the speed of a horse for maybe up to 25 yards. When they hit they barrel into their victim with their chest then come out swinging. Just no way to avoid that flurry if/when it happens.
But what's interesting is prey response to a bear challenge. If the herd bolts that's that. A race. But if the herd has an alpha, say a buck, the buck will issue a reciprocal challenge and a stand off usually ensues. Most often the buck will get the bear to back down. If a bear backs down they go into a wide circle mode of the herd, looking for an opportunity target. Quite similar to the great cats stalking.
I observed the stallions we had in the pack operation do exactly the same thing. Challenge, counter challenge, often rearing up a little, then both circle. The stallion has the height on the bear and striking front hooves is a serious deterrent which the bear appears to be fully aware of. I think this is why the bear does the short initial challenge. To see if a head down buck will come charging at it, or a stallions flailing hooves are in it's future.
But bears are not carnivores. They will back down and their main diet is nuts, berries, and all too often, people dropped garbage. When problems occur between bears and people, the root of the problem usually finds the human initially at fault.
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