Bears in the Backyard

A Q&A in Backpacker magazine answers a reader’s question about what to do in the case of aggressive behavior from a mother bear.

The question came from Joe Whittle, whose bear encounter was recounted at his blog.

Here’s the gist of the advice:

Mother black bears rarely respond like mother grizzlies, which have a strong maternal protection instinct and likely would’ve attacked you in response to aggressive tactics in such a close encounter. Instead, black bears typically snort, stamp their feet, and bluff charge in an effort to scare you away—all of which you witnessed—but rarely attack. A return aggressive display on your part, followed by a calm exit, both reinforces a negative association with humans and allows both parties to escape without contact.

Uh, isn’t it clear why you shouldn’t feed bears?

Seems that way to me. I can think of a few reasons: it’s unsafe to you; the bears may come to rely on you; and it’s bad for the bears.

Case in point: A man allegedly got hurt by a bear by feeding it in Florida, and now he’s in trouble with the law and the bear was trapped and killed by authorities.

You don’t want to do this, for your own safety and for the bear’s. Yes, here’s a video with people tossing food to a bear.

According to The Los Angeles Times, officials have charged a man with two misdemeanors for killing a bear on the shore of Lake Mary. The story says the man “had been fishing with a female companion and claimed he shot the 175-pound bear in self defense.”

This video shows a black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains.

There’s not a lot to it. Just the bear wandering around the forest.

Pennsylvania’s got lots of opportunities for bear hunting, no doubt about that. So why would you need to “bait” a bear?

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BBC footage of a man who turned his home into a stomping ground for wild bears.