Asteroid impact may be unthinkable, but I'm prepared for the event.

MoapaPk wrote:Asteroid impact may be unthinkable, but I'm prepared for the event.

Are you packing some "heat"???

gwave47 wrote:Bob you're so tough, I aspire to be just like you. You forget one thing though, so you don't have to be scared to die. Being afraid in the back country and being prepared to defend yourself are two different things. You sound like the little kid in gym class who tells the bully "i'm not afraid of you", right before he gets his face punched in and his lunch money taken. Come on Bob, think harder before making ridiculous comments.

Hey, that's great, man! I've long said that if more people tried to be like me, it would be a much better world! Should I send you my book or just have you shadow me? If the latter, you can carry your gun to protect me in case any of my enemies try to stop me!

Buz Groshong wrote:Don't bet on it. Having a gun in the tent wouldn't have done much good for those sleeping campers and having a gun wouldn't have helped the victims of the DC snipers. "Sometimes things just have to die at the end of a cold piece of steel!" - that could just as easily be a drama queen like you.

I wouldn't be so sure, Buz. Most of these guys, to hear them tell it, are like Dirty Harry; they are deadly accurate and perfectly calm no matter what the circumstance, and they are always ready. Most bear attacks follow surprise encounters and occur in a matter of seconds, but that is more than enough time for the supermen to draw, aim, and fire, making sure the bear is down instantly instead of wounded and enraged. You really need to watch more movies, Buz.

BeDrinkable wrote:As far as death statistics, you can always check out Death in Yellowstone. If I remember correctly, more people have died from falls and from falling in the hot pools than Grizzly attacks. By quite a bit.

If people were only allowed to shoot into the hot pools, the internal plumbing might collapse, choking off the water source and cooling the pools, and then these terrible things would never happen. And don't give me any of that nonsense about the pools being their first; it's my God-given right to be there, and goshdarnit, I'll do as I please.

MoapaPk wrote:Each year, far more people die just driving to and from the Golden Gate Bridge, than from jumping off the bridge. So there.

If they just shot the bridge and made it fall, they would save a lot of lives.

I'll remind everyone that I believe in the individual right to own guns, especially in the home for defense against intruders and in high-crime areas. But the bravado and sense of entitlement of a lot of the gun lovers just goes too far.

Bummer. But, I don't see the sense in killing the bear. I don't support the idea that we need to crop and groom the backcountry to make it safer, it's the backcountry, leave it as it is.

Dow Williams wrote:

redneck wrote:The last California grizzly was killed almost 100 years ago. I confess it's hard to feel really sorry about that.

your moniker fits you well!

You know something? I got to choose it myself.

Meanwhile, it would interesting and revealing to know how many of you would ever go into the wilderness or climb your high walls without the high tech manufactured products of incredibly polluting and extractive industries that do far more harm to this planet than California's misguided hunters of century ago.

Precious few of you, I am pretty sure.

Day Hiker wrote:Out of the hundreds of people stopped, I wondered if just one person would be dumb enough to get out of the car and approach a mother grizzly with cubs. Alas, no.

I like the cut of your jib.

lowlands wrote:Bummer. But, I don't see the sense in killing the bear. I don't support the idea that we need to crop and groom the backcountry to make it safer, it's the backcountry, leave it as it is.

OK, I'll switch to mildly serious mode.

The theory is that this bear has lost her fear of people, and has found that people can be prey as well as indirect sources of food. The corollary is that the cubs have been taught this aspect of hunting by her.

I'm guessing it isn't practical to do a controlled study to test the theory. Maybe it was just a mentally unbalanced bear-- though I honestly don't know how one would judge, or whether therapy could help her deal with her aggression.

redneck wrote:...than California's misguided hunters of century ago.

... these are the times you surely miss ...

SoCalHiker wrote:

redneck wrote:...than California's misguided hunters of century ago.

... these are the times you surely miss ...

Not me. I wouldn't be spending any time up on San Gorgonio if the place was still overrun with grizzlies.

"but in the event that I had experienced 45,000 bear encounters I could almost guarantee you I would not be alive by number 1,000"

Almost guarantee, but not quite because you don't know what you're talking about. In 45,000 bear encounters, you might not ever get close enough to smell her breath.

The idea that killing these bears is somehow cleansing the backcountry is ridiculous. This didn't happen in the backcountry. If she had stayed in the backcountry there would be no problem. I don't like it, it really sucks, but these bears will be killed, and should be killed to preserve the rest of them. If bears like this were allowed to keep disrupting the peace, they would all be eradicated as a matter of general peacekeeping.

The woman in the tent who "played dead" said that in her opinion "this was not a normal bear." Granted, the predatory type attack here is not the common pattern of human-bear encounters, but does this make this bear "abnormal"? I wouldn't think so.

MoapaPk wrote:

lowlands wrote:Bummer. But, I don't see the sense in killing the bear. I don't support the idea that we need to crop and groom the backcountry to make it safer, it's the backcountry, leave it as it is.

OK, I'll switch to mildly serious mode.

The theory is that this bear has lost her fear of people, and has found that people can be prey as well as indirect sources of food. The corollary is that the cubs have been taught this aspect of hunting by her.

I'm guessing it isn't practical to do a controlled study to test the theory. Maybe it was just a mentally unbalanced bear-- though I honestly don't know how one would judge, or whether therapy could help her deal with her aggression.

Is it any wonder that some bears lose their fear of humans when you look at the photo below? I don't think it's healthy for bears to be surrounded by crowds of people sitting in cars. They surely know you are in there. It would be better if everyone blasted their horn to put some fear into them (or keep on driving) rather than let them graze comfortably about while everyone gets their photo op. Look closely at the rear view mirror and side mirror... Wild animals should be admired from a distance.

b. wrote: I don't like it, it really sucks, but these bears will be killed, and should be killed to preserve the rest of them. If bears like this were allowed to keep disrupting the peace, they would all be eradicated as a matter of general peacekeeping.

You are right, b, but that leads to another truth: In time, there will be no aggressive bears. The bears in the Italian Appenines are grizzly bears by species, but they never hurt anyone, they are so shy and timid. That's because there's been strong natural selection in Italy for centuries for the wimpiest bears--if you are a bear and you are at all assertive, somebody will have an encounter with you and you'll be killed, and your genes will die with you.

Our grizzlies will be like that too someday, maybe not too far in the future. The wilderness will be a lot tamer as a result, and people will be able to barge along in fear of nothing worse than a twisted ankle. Are we completely happy about that?