Oh puleeze. You people are panicking unnecessarily. Bears are cute & cuddly.
My house is full of bears. There's Yogi, Booboo, Winnie, & Gloomy too.

BenT

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 5:20 PM, Al Knoll <anasasi@gmail.com> wrote:

> About packing a gun along with your sleeping bag.  If you miss, ye bear may
> eat you.  If you don't kill him, he will eat you or sample you as a
> horsedoover, while searching for more palatable vittles.  The likely
> tourist/camper who has a firearm at his/her disposal may feel safer but in
> reality isn't.  The ability to effectively take down a 1000 lbs of angry
> sausage with a handgun is mythical wishing at best.  The grizzly has no
> recognized predator, or threat, you are merely an annoyance.
>
> We had a well known Toklat grizzly, named Goldilocks that frequented the
> dump at Ft. Greely with her occassional cub/s.  She could take a whack at
> an
> empty 55 gallon drum and flatten it with one smite.  Powerful, fast, deadly
> and really a good looker.   We once saw her banish an almost full grown
> brown male by a short charge and a standup and the requsite dropped head
> and
> a "WHUFF".  Story about holding off a female with cubs with a loud chainsaw
> downwind by request,  we were rescued by an H34 helicopter.
>
> Don't mess with Goldilocks.
>
> Pensionerd.
>
> USAATB/NWTC 1963-64
>
> On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Alistair Bell <albell@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> > from NPR website, you decide if Loren has it right in his opinion:
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/2c9rbps
> >
> >
> >
> >> July 29, 2010
> >
> > by FRANK JAMES
> >
> > IAN MCALLISTER/RAINCOAST CONSERVATION SOCIETY
> > A female grizzly bear thought to be responsible for horrifying night-time
> > attacks that killed one camper and wounded others as they slept near
> > Yellowstone National Park in Montana was captured, wildlife and law
> > enforcement officials said.
> >
> > The bear was caught in a culvert trap (here's an example of one) after it
> > returned to the scene of the attack just as officials had suspected it
> > would. The bear was caught with two of its three cubs. No word in any of
> the
> > reporting I've seen on the on the whereabouts of the third cub.
> >
> > The bear will be killed, if it already hasn't been. There was no
> indication
> > from authorities on what would happen to the cubs aside from the
> information
> > that they wouldn't be returned to the wild.
> >
> > People knowledgeable about bear behavior say the Tuesday attack on
> sleeping
> > campers was unusual in that it wasn't a case of a mother bear or sow
> > displaying protective behavior.
> >
> > Instead, the bear entered several tents and attacked the campers for no
> > reason readily apparent to humans. The man who was killed was camping
> alone
> > at a site a quarter mile away from where other campers were attacked.
> >
> > The Billings Gazette described what one family experienced as the attacks
> > occurred at their camp site. An excerpt:
> >
> > Campers Paige and Don Wilhelm, of Aledo, Texas, were camped in site No.
> 12
> > of the 10-acre campground when they heard a scream at about 1:30 a.m. At
> > first, they thought it was just teenagers screwing around. They checked
> on
> > their two boys, ages 12 and 9, and then tried to go back to sleep.
> >
> > Then they heard another scream, this one closer.
> >
> > �I heard somebody yell, �Stop! No!� � said Paige Wilhelm.
> >
> > And then they heard the woman yell, �A bear�s attacked me!�
> >
> > As they arose to dress, they heard a bear come by their tent, making a
> > �huffing� sound.
> >
> > The Missoulian reports that the woman, Canadian Deb Freele of London,
> > Ontario, eventually played dead, which caused the bear to break off the
> > attack.
> >
> > While attacks like this are unusual, it did cross my mind that one result
> > of something like this could be that more national park campers decide to
> > protect themselves by packing gunsalong with their sleeping bags. And who
> > could blame them, now that it's legal to do so?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11-Feb-11, at 4:17 PM, Loren Busch wrote:
> >
> > RE:P Bear Attack
> >>
> >> This AP story seems to confirm your recollections, not mine.  I heard
> the
> >>> reports on two different NPR stations very near to the time the
> incident
> >>> happened, actually hearing of the incident one day, and of its
> resolution
> >>> a
> >>> day or so later.  I also seem to recall the fate of the younger bears
> >>> incorrectly, as this AP story states that the two young bears were sent
> >>> to a
> >>> zoo.
> >>> Memory is a funny thing.  Mine seems to be wrong in this case, at least
> >>> based on this AP report and your recollections.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Your memory may not be the problem, it might be the source.  Most don't
> >> consider NPR much of reliable source for news, known for really sloppy
> and
> >> biased reporting.
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>

-- 
BenT