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What polar bears think of kayaks
- Thread starter Glenn MacGrady
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That's my feeling about them too.
Bears are really smart. You can tell just by watching this. Plenty of sea kayakers in SE Alaska have their boats attacked by grizz. Boats have a lot of human scent and the bears think they do not belong in their environment.
Grizzly bears have a propensity to gnaw on plastics. I've had them take a bite out of stashed poly Old Town canoe, and plastic jugs at remote cabins (in Alaska) are inevitably punctured or demolished by bears.
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It looks to me like the polar bears are playing with toys, not trying to get rid of them.
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An argument could be made for having a firearm.
Or more bear smarts in this case.
During our mandatory 6 hour "night" rest stops to camp while on the Yukon River 1000 mile races, we would completely empty our voyageur canoe from all gear and evidence of daytime snacking activity, and pulled it way up on shore, hoping no snooping walk through by any multi hundred pound critters. Never had any problem although we saw many bears along the river bank, both black and grizz. But then again we did not use any plastic canoes, only wood cedarstrip and carbon.
True. And to stop the unbearable behavior, I wouldn't blame the bear if he used it.
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I think you guys are too hard on her. The tone of her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard, but her use of bear spray was appropriate.
I see some sailboats in the background so presumably she could summon help should the bear make her boat unseaworthy. So all her pleas were unnecessary.
I think I saw another similar video.
But what would you do if a bear was tearing up your boat and it was your only way out. I’m sure a bear could trash fiberglass and Kevlar. Maybe ever rolax if it tromped hard.
I’m asking seriously. I guess this only applies to solo trippers.
But I’ll survive the jokes too.
I see some sailboats in the background so presumably she could summon help should the bear make her boat unseaworthy. So all her pleas were unnecessary.
I think I saw another similar video.
But what would you do if a bear was tearing up your boat and it was your only way out. I’m sure a bear could trash fiberglass and Kevlar. Maybe ever rolax if it tromped hard.
I’m asking seriously. I guess this only applies to solo trippers.
But I’ll survive the jokes too.
Not entirely. Although she used the spray once, it appeared she was farther away than ideal. Although the bear reacted, he did so minimally. She could have been more effective in spraying it either by getting closer or a longer spray. Also, when the bear was ripping up stuff in her kayak, she verbally threatened the bear with spray rather than actually spraying it. According to what she said while conversing with the bear (!), there was no food in the kayak, thus the bear had nothing to defend--it was just checking things out. Obviously it was a habituated bear, and probably food conditioned. (Personally, I would have approached the bear and sprayed the hell out of it when it started approaching the kayak. I've tried to elicit a charge with a black bear on garbage just to give it a better faceful of spray--he ran off, even though he had something to defend, resulting in a less than ideal (for me) spray.)
A more problematic interaction is described in https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/saved-by-garmin/couple-escapes-grizzly-bear/, where the couple is in remote NWT and a persistent grizzly destroys their tent and their canoe (Ally folding canoe), and has been sprayed. In my travels up north, that is the precise reason I take a firearm (and pepper spray for each person) on remote trips. Although pepper spray is quite effective in stopping attacks (when used properly), it may be less effective in "urging" bears to vacate an area. The motivations of the bear and the situations are quite different. In an actual or near predatory situation on the tundra, the bear can just bide its time, waiting for a better opportunity. Once sprayed, it may just avoid getting too close until the time is right. There are lots of possibilities you can stay awake at night pondering. Tom Smith, one of the biggest authorities on human-bear conflicts, recommends multiple defenses in brown/grizzly country--pepper spray and firearms give you lots of options.
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Most of us don’t have a large number of bear encounters from which we can learn and refine our responses. I bet few people get it textbook right on their first encounter. Especially since even experts and trippers disagree on the “right” response.
If she was using the pepper spray for the first time, getting the distance right could be difficult - ie waiting for the bear to get closer. She did it good enough to get the bear to back off and that success is an important one. Maybe the most important one.
I think we all have read many real life situations regarding interactions with bears. If nothing else, they show nothing is guaranteed, no matter which protocol you follow.
We have had black bears in Canada bite into gas and bar oil jugs.
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