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Short Encounters with Bear and Mountain Lion

The bear encounter is not as bad as it seems. The vid appears to be taken in Southeast Alaska, where bear-human interactions are pretty common. Bears there are focused on one thing--salmon. While on that search for salmon (a concentrated food source), they have to put up with other bears. Theory (and years of empirical evidence) suggests they treat humans like other bears, and so SE AK bears tend to put up with humans as if they are other bears. Their good manners does not apply to interior (grizzly) bears. There the bears are reliant on very spatially-dispersed food sources (e.g. carcasses), and they have to defend those carcasses, helping their ornery disposition.

The bear vid looks like the bear is just covering ground, and initially doesn't see the people--he's just running up the stream trying to get somewhere. You can see how he pauses when he sees the people, proceeds more cautiously around them, and then continues its journey in the stream.

The cougar interaction is quite different. The cougar is definitely in a predatory mode. However, the fellow exacerbates the problem by backing away. The cougar is going to follow you as long as you back away, you fall (things get exciting then), or it gets bored, as you're still eliciting its predatory behavior. If the fellow held his ground, threw stuff, yelled, fired the handgun, etc. (showing he's a mean SOB), the likelihood of attack is lessened. And he has a handgun, which is all the better (for him). In the fellow's defense, however, he was filming the interaction. There's voluminous evidence showing that using cell phones to film dangerous situations alter the function of brain cells normally used in more evolutionarily conducive manner for which they evolved.
 
There's voluminous evidence showing that using cell phones to film dangerous situations alter the function of brain cells normally used in more evolutionarily conducive manner for which they evolved.

Now that's a colorful sentence.

Speaking of color, is that a black or brown bear? It looks sort of dark brown to me.
 
The top video is undoubtedly from Katmai National Monument in Alaska which is known for close interactions with habituated bears. The people do not react which is characteristic of what I call "Bear Disneyland."

The bottom video of a cat is unfortunate because the poor guy in the video is scared to death. You can tell by his voice and his heavy breathing. Best to stop, get big and get loud. Firing a couple of warning shots is a great idea, but backing up confuses the message to the lion. I like to swear at them in a loud voice, throw rocks, sticks, etc. Put down your phone and scare the freakin mtn lion away.
 
North America now has only 3 kinds of bears.
Ursus americana. Black bears.
Ursus arctos. All grizzly, brown bears, Barren Grounds grizzly, coastal brown bears, etc.
Ursus maritimus. Polar bears.
The bear in the video is U arctos.
 
I came down off Chilkoot Pass, Alaska into a lodgepole pine forest in northern British Columbia. The trail was covered in paw prints made by moose, bear and wolf primarily. There were no human foot prints showing. I began to recite the dialogue from "Caddyshack" in a loud voice, the scene where Carl is hitting Chrysanthemums with a weed whacker. "Oh, he got all of that one. He's going to like that. He's got about 174 yards to the hole, I think he's got a 6 iron." Make noise in the bush, especially if there is a lot of brush and thick forests. Let them know you are coming.
 
Just to give you (primary Easterners) a glimpse of the variety of pelage of black bears, here're some photos that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks used to provide for hunters to correctly identify black versus grizzly. I used to present these to students in my bear training classes. Some can be quite challenging. The reason I mention Easterners, is that brown characteristics of black bears tend to increase as you go west. Eastern black bears are almost exclusively black. I've forgotten the true underlying causes, but at one time a darker pelage was associated with the amount of rainfall--wet East vs drier West, and then also the coastal (wetter) northwest coast. I've been out of the business a while, and haven't kept up with current thinking (and am too lazy to look it up).
1672255456095.jpeg1672255482472.jpeg1672255500504.jpeg1672255520594.jpeg
 
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I was fly fishing at dusk in a ravine. It was a summer evening where the fog on a tail water (cold from the reservoir upstream) was thick. I saw what looked like a beaver swimming in the pool below me. It turned out to be a black bear swimming. It proceeded to walk out, shake like a dog, and head up the only steep trail to the road above. After what I felt like was enough time, I made my way up in the dark singing Led Zeppelin tunes loudly. I haven’t forgotten a flashlight in my fishing pack since.

Bob
 
I was fly fishing at dusk in a ravine. It was a summer evening where the fog on a tail water (cold from the reservoir upstream) was thick. I saw what looked like a beaver swimming in the pool below me. It turned out to be a black bear swimming. It proceeded to walk out, shake like a dog, and head up the only steep trail to the road above. After what I felt like was enough time, I made my way up in the dark singing Led Zeppelin tunes loudly. I haven’t forgotten a flashlight in my fishing pack since.

Bob

A bear swimming does look a lot like an unusually large beaver. I saw this one swimming when I was paddling on a local stream. I was just out for exercise, but by luck I had my camera handy and was able to get a couple photos at the limit of useful range. Once the bear got to the bank he made an impossibly fast move and was gone, no dog shake unfortunately. The black bears in Maine usually have a healthy fear of humans, there's a long tradition of hunting them over jelly doughnuts.

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Now that's a colorful sentence.

Speaking of color, is that a black or brown bear? It looks sort of dark brown to me.
black, browns have a pronounced shoulder hump
North America now has only 3 kinds of bears.
Ursus americana. Black bears.
Ursus arctos. All grizzly, brown bears, Barren Grounds grizzly, coastal brown bears, etc.
Ursus maritimus. Polar bears.
The bear in the video is U arctos.
nope, it's a black, there's no shoulder hump, and brown bear ears are smaller, furrier, and mounted lower on the head.
 
Cougar stalks phone videoing hiker for six minutes. What causes the retreat?
That's actually not a stalk--rather it's a defensive behavior protecting its cub from the person (cub is visible at the immediate start of the vid). The widespread forelimbs and the slaps pretty much gives it away--bears do the same thing when showing defensive behavior. I'd guess the retreat is due to the adult moving the person sufficiently far away from the cub that it felt that the cub was not in danger.
 
black, browns have a pronounced shoulder hump

nope, it's a black, there's no shoulder hump, and brown bear ears are smaller, furrier, and mounted lower on the head.
No, it's definitely a brown bear. Face is different, ears are smaller than black, and the hump is somewhat obscured by the animal running, but it's there. I've seen so many brown and black bears, both in the wild and photos (ex-bear manager for 20 years) that for me there's almost a Gestalt in distinguishing between the two.
 
HI Mason. Thanks for chiming in.
Can you explain the level of fear that the public seems to have of mountain lions?
Can you explain why the same public tends to dismiss the threat from black bears?
It is very puzzling to me.
 
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