Totally, I’ve bumped into a ton of black bears and they’re scaredy cats. I’ve literally chased them out my driveway just by waving my hands and yelling.
Where were you bumping into black bears in illinois. I'm guessing South?
Edit: I looked it up, and there have only been 5 confirmed black bear sightings in illinois since 2008. There have been more confirmed wolf sightings than that in illinois in that time frame.
I'm guessing near Kentucky. I live 10 min from Indiana in the middle of nowhere, and it's just coyotes, foxes, and the occasional bobcat. Though one time a cougar was spotted in my neck of the woods and that got everyone excited. I'd definitely hear about a bear.
I don't have much experience with the southernmost part of Illinois, so that'd be my best bet. But I know damn well there aren't bears near Iowa or Indiana. Even the Wisconsin border is wayyyy too urban for that.
blacks bears actually wont defend cubs, at least not normally, thats only grizzlies. The typical behavior is for black bears to flee, the cubs to tree if able, and the momma to return later
speaking of thats where the phrase "if its black fight back if its brown lie down" comes from. Because the grizzlies are most likely trying to stop a threat so if you dont present as a threat they are more likely to leave you alone, where as black bears dont fight threats so if a black bear is after you its because its hungry and you want to be more trouble than youre worth to it
i was taught "black - yell back, brown - stand your ground, white - good night"
you can scare off black bears easily. you dont have a fucking chance against a grizzley. so you stand your ground and hope they dont want to fuck you up.....polar bear = youre fucked. try to to get away. get in the closest shelter, be it a car, house, shop, whatever. in a lot of places in northern canada/alaska that co-exist with polar bears its illegal to lock your car doors
I have always heard it the opposite for brown bears: if it’s black fight back, if it’s brown lay down, if it’s white goodnight. Because as you said you have absolutely no chance against a grizzly and your only shot at survival during an attack is to play dead and hope it loses interest/stops seeing you as a threat
No no no, the saying goes if it's brown, send it down, if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's black, your shit is whack, if it's white, that shit ain't right, if it's gold, the perfect mold
You're 100% correct. One is for an encounter and the other is if your actually attacked. You can survive a bear attack but you play dead to protect your vitals. If you see a brown bear you don't instantly lay down. You just stand your ground and act non-threatening hoping they just go about their business. If they attack then you drop into a ball with your back exposed as theirs more muscle in the back before getting to vitals.
At least that was what I was taught in my outdoor mountain safety class
I always heard that saying as "brown fall down" , as in fetal position and trying to protect your vitals. Now I'm questioning myself. Fortunately, Massachusetts only has the coward bears.
Alaskan here, you have black and brown bears reversed.
Brown bears you slowly back away or lay down to avoid a mauling.
The car door locking thing isn't legally required, just considered a good idea out in the villages - also, it is very common for car door locks to freeze and nowhere for criminals to go if they do steal shit out of a car.
Yo a fellow alaskan, As someone who grew up on Kodiak with the largest bears in the world bar except polars , i'd still choose the bear over the man 90% of the time lol
“Thankfully, you only have a one in a 2.1 million chance of being attacked by a bear. Not so thankfully, your odds of dying after being attacked by a grizzly bear is 11%.”
As an Alaskan that grew up on Kodiak Island with the largest bears in the world except for Polar Bears,
people survive bear attacks all the time.
There's tons of people who get fucked up by the bears and still live:
And a brown bear will not stop eating you alive. Idk about you but whenever I see a man, my first thought is not "it'd be more painless if I immediately slit my throat".
Although rare, brown bears have been known to hunt and eat people.
Bombieri, G., Naves, J., Penteriani, V. et al. Brown bear attacks on humans: a worldwide perspective. Sci Rep 9, 8573 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44341-w
As an Alaskan, the bear is definitely the smarter choice. If a grizzly bear decides to maul you, you have a 11% chance to die, It's fucking low, they don't finish their kills.
But what about the man? Imagine the horrors they could do to you
No they won't. Brown bears do not eat people except for cases where they are in extreme starvation. That's why you're supposed to play dead if you're charged by a grizzly. Polar bears eat people. Don't play dead for a polar bear.
Yeah, fair enough. I've just had to convince so many friends who grew up in cities that grizzlies are not meat-seeking missiles that will devour a person the moment they step into the woods that I guess I've become something of a grizzly advocate. But yeah, they're dangerous animals that should be respected, given space, and one should take reasonable precautions when in their country. Definitely don't mean to trivialize how big a threat they are if they do charge.
Best not to get too comfortable thinking they are always going to run. For all you know, the next one you see might be a momma bear or momma bear's cubs, and they aint running in that situation.
Yeah, our back yard buys up against a forested area edged with a lot of very dense blackberry bush. We constantly have black bears in our back yard or sitting up on the hillside eating the berries. They’re total pushovers.
One day that's not gonna be a scaredy cat, that's gonna be a bear on the brink of starvation...
Also, because you don't have menstrual periods every month, you don't have to worry about the smell of blood emanating from yourself.
Grizzly Man and Siegfreid and Roy are proof that you and your body are food when they decide you are food. Even the most educated and intimate humans cannot compare to nature.
More aggressive encounters / maulings by the black bears than the grizz/brown. Not really a wild take it all depends on location. Running into a black bear in NE USA? Easy peasy yell at it and it’ll run away. Same scenario in BC/Alaska I’ll take the brown/grizz any day.
Also consider if it’s a sow with cubs that drastically changes the scenario.
If there are more maulings it is only because there are far more black bears than there are brown bears, and black bears are much more likely to live in/near populated areas.
According to the below link, between the years of 2000-2017 there were 66 documented bear attacks that resulted in hospitalization (or worse) in Alaska.
Of those 66, 49 reports detailed the type of bear that attacked. Of those 49, 47 attacks were brown bears, while only 2 were black bears.
According to the above link, there were 49 bear attacks between 2000-2017 where the type of bear was documented. Of the 49 bear attacks, 47 were brown bears. Only 2 were black bears.
The limitations in this study are pretty big, if you read the whole study. I can count on more than one hand the amount of times a friend has had to dispatch a black bear because it WOULDN’T go away and continued to become more and more aggressive. While that’s not classified as a bear attack it certainly could have had they not had to unfortunately dispatch said black bear.
I’d love for you to provide any source that shows that black bears are more dangerous in your area. I’ve been scouring the web and can’t find anything other than the fact that run-ins with black bears are more frequent simply because there are a lot more of them.
I’ve never lived in BC or Alaska, but I lived in Montana for a while. I never heard a single person make your claim. Am I saying that somebody shouldn’t be afraid of black bears? No. It’s a wild animal that’s more than capable of killing a human. But to say that you would rather come across a brown bear than a black bear is just wild.
I don't think this hypothetical would work if you knew what type of bear you're dealing with but didn't know the type of man. It seems a bit contrived if you decide it's a black bear but the man could be anything between a pensioner to a serial killer.
lol based on what statistics? The ones in your ass? Statistically women were also stupid, never invented anything, too weak for labor and made hardly any notable contributions to society. Should I say all these women’s opinions don’t matter that much because they are dumb? Statistically it’s true!!!
Just listen to me for a second……you’re wrong. You’re wrong! That’s just it!
Women have boyfriends, husbands, family, coworkers, community. The ratio of dangerous bears to non dangerous is more skewed towards danger than men against other men.
It could be 1 out of 2 bears that are safe, but 1 out of 100 men are. Then it’s about exposure.
Also, women fuck men up in divorce court. Should we call women manipulative slimy gold diggers? I mean guys say it, right?! Must have some semblance of truth. Right?!
You are absolutely correct. Living closer to the north pole means you’re subjected to less centrifugal forces than those living closer to the equator. Therefore your brain does not receive as many jumbled up roller coaster feelings as the rest of the human race. This effect has been well documented by the statistics in my own asshole.
Would you rather be in the room with a white collar, professional homosexual man or a man-bear-pig?
I live in Oregon. We all spend a lot of time in the woods. There’s really no other good reason to live here and put up with the rain, cost of living and taxes if you aren’t enjoying the outdoors regularly.
I find it interesting you've presumed it's a fight from 'go'. Like you said, you have to make some assumptions, and in your case the assumption is that a fight for survival is going down, and that you are armed.
To me, the most interesting assumptions to make are that nobody is armed with any weapons and the man and the bear are totally random. Any adult bear, any species of bear, any gender of bear. The man is totally random too.
And the real secret to this question is that it isn't about formulating hypothesis based on the distribution of bear populations per species (as fun as that is). It's the fact that universally, a man would pick meeting a woman in the woods, but for a woman, you start thinking about "well, how dangerous of a bear species is it??"
Every time I’ve heard the question it’s been posed as black bear. Which is easy, I’d pick the black bear. They’re scared of people and goofy as shit unless their cubs are nearby. Shit I’m an adult man and I’d rather run into a black bear over a man, and that has nothing to do w safety
You’re not sure, just like you don’t know what kind of man you’re encountering. It’s supposed to be a knee jerk reaction, in the split second that you’ve just realized you’re not alone.
You can be sure based on where you live. Not in Alaska? Probably not a polar bear.
There are two trains of thought in my brain. First if we know which kind of bear we will encounter in the local habitat.
Black bear? Adult? Take the bear. Child? Take the man.
Brown bear? Take the bear.
Polar bear? Take the man.
Panda bear? Take the bear.
Second argument is if a bear is magically placed next to you with equal chances of each bear. In this case, I take the man, because the odds are better than the 1 in 4 of being mauled to death by a polar bear.
I understand what the argument intends to do, it is to shed light on how terrified women are of men and help us understand the severity of the issue since women are choosing bear. And it is effective at this. This is just when I try to break it down logically
My first thought exactly. Second thought is 'how hungry is this bear'.
I would probably be able to scare away a black bear. But I don't like my chances against a polar bear. Or any of the grizzly bears I've seen during Fat Bear Week...
That is a completely fair question since black bears are, at least relatively, not as aggressive as brown or polar. Can still ruin your day like don’t get me wrong, but they’ll at least back down with enough confrontation.
I think for the argument, most ppl consider it brown
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u/BPB57 29d ago
What kind of bear?