How come if somebody shoots another human being in self defense everybody supports your actions, but if you shoot a bear in self defense the hiking community responds with "poor bear" or "too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker", or my personal favorite "that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory." So it's okay to kill people but not bears, now there are some people who sound like nuts.

In the last 50 years, a very small number of people have been killed by bears anywhere in the lower 48. On the other hand, every year about 40,000 people in the US die in car accidents.

Carrying a gun in a Natl Park to protect yourself from a bear attack makes far less sense than buying an M1 Tank to commute to work.

Of the dozens of bears (including a couple grizzlies) I've run into, all have bolted as soon as they saw me. It always surprises me that a predator that powerful should run from little ol' unarmed me. Bears have a great instinctual fear of humans; that's good. We owe our ability to walk unarmed safely in the wilderness to their instinctual fear of us.

I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

gwave47 wrote:How come if somebody shoots another human being in self defense everybody supports your actions, but if you shoot a bear in self defense the hiking community responds with "poor bear" or "too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker", or my personal favorite "that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory." So it's okay to kill people but not bears, now there are some people who sound like nuts.

You just simply make no sense at all. You state something nobody here ever said. And it's utterly meaningless to discuss anything with people like you. Carry your gun, carry on...

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

gwave47 wrote: What the hell gives a bear the right to attack an innocent hiker and maul them to death and that just be acceptable because we were in "their" territory.

The area of "bear rights" is an emerging field of law, but at the moment there are no constraints on a bear's right to attack anyone or anything, parked vehicle with food inside, another animal, or a hiker, innocent or otherwise. Furthermore, there is suspicion that dead bears learn nothing from taking a 7.62mm round to the head and presumably neither do their survivors.

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

Bear researchers hypothesize that denning only during a major first snow, and only when temperature is low enough that the snow will remain, is an evolutionary response to predation by humans -- cover your tracks before you become vulnerable in a den.

Bear researchers find and tag bears in their dens all the time. See the Craighead book for grizz. I once met someone who tags sleeping bears and their cubs in Louisiana, where "hibernation" is really closer to sleep. She makes a point of having an overweight or out-of-shape grad student along.

SoCalHiker wrote:

gwave47 wrote:How come if somebody shoots another human being in self defense everybody supports your actions, but if you shoot a bear in self defense the hiking community responds with "poor bear" or "too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker", or my personal favorite "that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory." So it's okay to kill people but not bears, now there are some people who sound like nuts.

You just simply make no sense at all. You state something nobody here ever said. And it's utterly meaningless to discuss anything with people like you. Carry your gun, carry on...

The very first post on the 2nd page of the thread about the bear attack in Yellowstone stating one camper was killed and two others injured reads "poor bear". You just simply can't read at all. Nevermind the fact that someones family member is now dead, we're all so concerned about the bears life instead. Read the posts, that's where I got it from.

gwave47 wrote:

SoCalHiker wrote:

gwave47 wrote:How come if somebody shoots another human being in self defense everybody supports your actions, but if you shoot a bear in self defense the hiking community responds with "poor bear" or "too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker", or my personal favorite "that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory." So it's okay to kill people but not bears, now there are some people who sound like nuts.

You just simply make no sense at all. You state something nobody here ever said. And it's utterly meaningless to discuss anything with people like you. Carry your gun, carry on...

The very first post on the 2nd page of the thread about the bear attack in Yellowstone stating one camper was killed and two others injured reads "poor bear". You just simply can't read at all. Nevermind the fact that someones family member is now dead, we're all so concerned about the bears life instead. Read the posts, that's where I got it from.

"poor bear": post made by a troll

"too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker": show me where this has been said

"that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory": show me where this has been said

use your brain, not your gun (or I forgot, you don't use it, you just carry it)

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

If you have a better explanation for why a 400+ pound predator would run - at full speed - away from a 170 pound meat-sicle like myself, I'm all ears.

GerryS wrote:

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

If you have a better explanation for why a 400+ pound predator would run - at full speed - away from a 170 pound meat-sicle like myself, I'm all ears.

Because they have an instinctive fear of humans. We are not their prey.

Centuries are not on the scale where evolutionary changes happen. Even if, killing a handful (or even many) "aggressive" bear is not a strong enough selective pressure anyways.

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:If you have a better explanation for why a 400+ pound predator would run - at full speed - away from a 170 pound meat-sicle like myself, I'm all ears.

Because they have an instinctive fear of humans. We are not their prey.

In addition to biological evolution, grizzlies and wolves both have "culture" -- groups of behaviors that are passed on through socialization, not biology, and that differ from one group to another.

The most dramatic example is that western hemisphere wolves do not attack people while eastern hemisphere wolves do, especially in India.

That's one important reason why the authorities kill bears that kill people. We don't want them to pass on that meme. That's also why the cubs from the recent incident will be removed from the wild or killed when their mother is killed.

It's also a reason why Alaskan wolf harvests are too high, in that they disrupt wolf social structure and cultural traditions. Harvests of 10% or less per pack keep the "avoid humans" culture going, which is a good thing.

SoCalHiker wrote:

gwave47 wrote:

SoCalHiker wrote:

gwave47 wrote:How come if somebody shoots another human being in self defense everybody supports your actions, but if you shoot a bear in self defense the hiking community responds with "poor bear" or "too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker", or my personal favorite "that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory." So it's okay to kill people but not bears, now there are some people who sound like nuts.

You just simply make no sense at all. You state something nobody here ever said. And it's utterly meaningless to discuss anything with people like you. Carry your gun, carry on...

The very first post on the 2nd page of the thread about the bear attack in Yellowstone stating one camper was killed and two others injured reads "poor bear". You just simply can't read at all. Nevermind the fact that someones family member is now dead, we're all so concerned about the bears life instead. Read the posts, that's where I got it from.

"poor bear": post made by a troll

"too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker": show me where this has been said

"that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory": show me where this has been said

use your brain, not your gun (or I forgot, you don't use it, you just carry it)

I will pm you some of these if you'd like to see where they appeared in other posts. Really don't want to start quoting people from threads created last year though. Then everyone will chime in and start defending their old posts.

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

If you have a better explanation for why a 400+ pound predator would run - at full speed - away from a 170 pound meat-sicle like myself, I'm all ears.

Because they have an instinctive fear of humans. We are not their prey.

Centuries are not on the scale where evolutionary changes happen. Even if, killing a handful (or even many) "aggressive" bear is not a strong enough selective pressure anyways.

but why do bears have in instinctive fear of humans if it's not because we are their only predator?

Centuries may not be enough time for substantial evolution, but it's plenty of time to develop instinct. Perhaps you've never seen an untrained bird dog stop and point?

SoCalHiker wrote:

GerryS wrote:
I am mindful and thankful, that that instinct was developed from centuries of humans (starting with native Americans) killing bears who are weren't fearful of humans.

And where did you get that idea?

I'm not a scientist, but I suspect Gerry's right considering where humans were technologically and in the food chain thousands of years ago.