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I live in the expansion zone for grizzlies they’re discussing. The article covers some facts well. The bears are expanding range and interacting with humans mo

I live in the expansion zone for grizzlies they’re discussing. The article covers some facts well. The bears are expanding range and interacting with humans more often. I cannot recall specifics, but there are some valid arguments across multiple stakeholders and incentives for removing them from the endangered species list and allowing more hunting. When I hike out here, I have bear spray and a 10mm. Grizzlies are dangerous animals, you can surprise them in odd areas and distances, and it’s fairly windy in many of the risk areas which impacts spray. That said, the article felt a bit disingenuous in how it described the bears as a vicious mankiller. Standard knowledge is 90% of the interactions are when you surprise a grizzly bear. The odds further lower that you’d surprise a bear leading to an interaction vs seeing the bear over a valley. If it happens, play dead on your stomach. They’ll swipe at you and walk away. *edit, should say the odds of getting to this are even more low, as they’ll usually huff/puff, and then “bluff charge”, and then worst case it could get to an attack to “end the threat” but not “eat you.” You can get hurt badly this way, but not a man-eater attack by no means. The other 10% are when they hunt after you, and then I yes I carry a 10mm and hike with a dog. But the odds of getting that far vs bear spray working are low too. If the author is making a narrative around nature as to get people to read about mature, I can def respect that. But bears shouldn’t be feared beyond a healthy fear/respect border, especially if further interaction is likely. This is a good resource to learn about bears from NOLS in Wyoming: https://youtu.be/1KWSJ3piSfM https://youtu.be/1KWSJ3piSfM

type0 3y ago
My grandma used to pick raspberries in the woods as a child, sometimes a brown bear would show up to eat the berries, it would stay on their spot and didn't try to scare people away. Unless you disturb them during hibernation or come between the mom and her cubs they're fairly peaceful.
COGlory 3y ago
I had an encounter with a grizzly just north of West Yellowstone last fall. We had a huge snow storm on opening weekend and I was trying to find friends who had made camp in the Snowcrest range, and were severely snowed in. After a few days they decided to walk out and sent me a message over the satelleite phone where to meet them. They then left the satelleite phone at the camp with others, and headed to the meetup point. The meetup point was ~12 miles off the main dirt road, and I got permanently stuck about 10 miles in. I got out and hiked the rest of the distance through a couple feet of snow, along a creek bed with a large draw on my other side. Once I got to the spot, I waited for them, but they didn't show up. After two hours, I turned back (to get somewhere with signal if possible) and after about 1/4 mile, realized there were large bear tracks criss-crossed all over my tracks. I put my head on a swivel and after about a half mile, finally spotted the large brown bear, up on the draw (now to my left). It was about 200 yards behind me. It was cautiously following me, and we proceeded this way for probably another quarter mile. I was still at least a mile from my vehicle, and there were no humans around for who knows how far, let alone mobile considering how much snow we got. At that point, the bear started coming down the draw, and my nervousness turned into all out panic. I was shaking like a leaf and lost my nerve. I gave it a warning shot with my .357 and thankfully, it decided I was scary enough to not be worth the curiosity. The .357 has a 1.8" barrel and is unfathomably loud, so despite not being a great bear gun, it did the trick there. I do have a 10mm, but I had sent it up to hunting camp with my friends. My personal unscientific take, largelt biased from that experience is that we should kill 5-10 of the most human adapted bears every year, and not leave it to chance that they will ignore us. The article portrayed what's going on with livestock ranching, hunting, and tourism quite well, but it left out the fact that these bears are just getting less afraid of humans in general as interaction increases. It would be wise to select against that if we can.
- dogman144 3y ago
  That’s a great story, sounds intense. Even with out the bear that’s dicey getting stuck in snow in the backcountry. I hike with a gun for basically those scenarios. I stay fresh with a range but it seems that warning shots are mostly as far as it goes. There is a bad story of a hunting guide getting killed near an elk carcass though, either Dubois or Cody area I can’t recall. So it can def go south if they’re looking at you more deliberately. Glad you made it! Thanks for sharing! I’m on that side less often, more the Absarokas.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    > That’s a great story, sounds intense. Even with out the bear that’s dicey getting stuck in snow in the backcountry. It was very intense, but in the end we all got out safely, thankfully. >There is a bad story of a hunting guide getting killed near an elk carcass though, either Dubois or Cody area I can’t recall. Mark Uptain is probably who you're thinking of. It's dubious that he would have died if the hunter didn't abandon him. Very tragic. Anyways, I'd much rather be on this side of the Absaroka's when it comes to grizzlies!
    - dogman144 3y ago
      Yes same person. Local papers tore up the hunter for leaving.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "but it left out the fact that these bears are just getting less afraid of humans in general as interaction increases." Isn't it also possible, that the interactions are increasing, because simply more people (without a clue) are going into bear territory? Otherwise yes, the bears should not forget to avoid humans.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    Yes and no. While more people are going outside than ever before, the places that they're encountering grizzlies are places no grizzlies have been sighted in 80-100 years. When I first moved to where I live now, there were (and still are obviously) three mountain ranges. Two of them were commonly regarded as grizzly free. Not anymore.
AlbertCory 3y ago
I've been a few feet away from the Kodiak subspecies (Ursus arctos middendorff). It was a grizzly-watching trip conducted by licensed guides, who carried a rifle. I don't actually know how comparable these are to the Lower 48 bears -- my impression is that on Kodiak there is so much salmon and so few people that the bears are less aggressive: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8 What you said about playing dead does resonate: I remember one episode where about five of us were sitting very still, and the bear was nosing around about five feet from us. I don't think it was at all curious about us. In other cases, the guides would just raise their hands and shout at the bears and scare them away. On the other hand, I watched a nature TV show, also shot on Kodiak, where the guy noticed one bear that was giving him the stink-eye. Occasionally one will take a dislike to you and you don't want to stick around.
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
> I have [...] a 10mm Is that a gun in your pocket or are you pleased to see me but underwhelmingly endowed? More seriously, I assume that's the bore of a gun. Coming from a nation without guns (or bears), I don't know what that says about it. Clarification welcome.
- mindcrime 3y ago
  There are a few different methods for denoting ammunition, but mostly you'll see sizes expressed in mm's, or decimal portions of an inch. Decimal portions of mm's show up as well, in things like "7.62x51" rounds, etc. Often (usually) there will be qualifiers (often the brand name of the first manufacturer of a given round, or the inventor of it). Qualifiers like "Auto", "Magnum", "NATO", etc are also common and have specific meanings. Colloquially in the US, "10mm" corresponds to "10mm Auto"[1] which is a moderately popular handgun cartridge. 10mm rounds are towards the larger / more powerful end of the popular range for handguns, but are still far from what most people would consider "packing for bear". Guns chambered for larger and more powerful rounds are available, but as with everything there are tradeoffs. With 10mm you sacrifice some "stopping power" (a simplistic calculation would be speed in feet-per-second times the mass of the projectile) per-shot, but can probably carry more total rounds, than something larger like, say, .44 Magnum[2] or .454 Casull[3]. So one weighs "would I be better off with n shots with x stopping power, or n-s shots with x*q stopping power, for some number of fewer shots s, and some additional power (as a ratio) q"? Other factors that come into play are cost, recoil, weight of the weapon itself (besides the cartridges), etc. Anyway, net-net, for people who live in bear country, from what I've seen, 10mm is often seen as a good compromise for bear protection. But I'm sure plenty of people prefer the .44 Magnum, the .454 Casull, or even something like .50AE[4]. We have bears where I live, but they're not common-place in this part of the state, and they're mostly black bears, and while they certainly can be dangerous, black bears are the smallest bear species that is common in North America. And at least around here, they still seem to be fairly "human shy" even when encountered. So on the occasions when I carry a pistol in the outdoors, I just go with the same 9mm I carry everywhere else. TBH, I'm not really thinking about bear protection much in those cases... I'm mostly carrying for protection from my fellow humans. shrug [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10mm_Auto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10mm_Auto [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.454_Casull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.454_Casull [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Action_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Action_Express
icouldntresist 3y ago
I'd use a 10mm in cougar country and get a .454 for griz TBH. /$.02
- dogman144 3y ago
  * guns aren’t fun, they’re a tool, do your research and don’t screw around with safety Ya I was leaning to a s&w .44 initially. Generally I think there’s a school of thought of handcannon and 1-2 shots vs more rounds off and good enough load. Reports of encounters where the handgun mattered tend to vary b/t .357, .44, 10mm bear load, etc. But, there’s a guy in an Alaska on YouTube who did a comparison of all the usual rd/weapon combos suggested, 10mm bear load + Glock 20 (what I use) did the best. I was comfortable with Glocks already so that’d wrapped it.
  - icouldntresist 3y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree, 10mm has better range, capacity and recoil characteristics, but I figure in most scenarios with a grizzly charging you, you're only getting off a couple of shots at close range anyway. I'm not a gun expert by any means btw.
    - COGlory 3y ago
      You need to consider weight, as well. Those big revolvers are heavy.
      - icouldntresist 3y ago
        Yeah chest holster is a must. Or suspenders with a belt and hip holster.
    - sufficer 3y ago
      My reckoning is the 10mm is a good all around safety gun. Good for bears. Great for human threats when out in the deep country. If you aren't packing a rifle that is

type0 3y ago

My grandma used to pick raspberries in the woods as a child, sometimes a brown bear would show up to eat the berries, it would stay on their spot and didn't try to scare people away. Unless you disturb them during hibernation or come between the mom and her cubs they're fairly peaceful.

COGlory 3y ago

I had an encounter with a grizzly just north of West Yellowstone last fall. We had a huge snow storm on opening weekend and I was trying to find friends who had made camp in the Snowcrest range, and were severely snowed in. After a few days they decided to walk out and sent me a message over the satelleite phone where to meet them. They then left the satelleite phone at the camp with others, and headed to the meetup point. The meetup point was ~12 miles off the main dirt road, and I got permanently stuck about 10 miles in. I got out and hiked the rest of the distance through a couple feet of snow, along a creek bed with a large draw on my other side. Once I got to the spot, I waited for them, but they didn't show up. After two hours, I turned back (to get somewhere with signal if possible) and after about 1/4 mile, realized there were large bear tracks criss-crossed all over my tracks. I put my head on a swivel and after about a half mile, finally spotted the large brown bear, up on the draw (now to my left). It was about 200 yards behind me. It was cautiously following me, and we proceeded this way for probably another quarter mile. I was still at least a mile from my vehicle, and there were no humans around for who knows how far, let alone mobile considering how much snow we got. At that point, the bear started coming down the draw, and my nervousness turned into all out panic. I was shaking like a leaf and lost my nerve. I gave it a warning shot with my .357 and thankfully, it decided I was scary enough to not be worth the curiosity. The .357 has a 1.8" barrel and is unfathomably loud, so despite not being a great bear gun, it did the trick there. I do have a 10mm, but I had sent it up to hunting camp with my friends. My personal unscientific take, largelt biased from that experience is that we should kill 5-10 of the most human adapted bears every year, and not leave it to chance that they will ignore us. The article portrayed what's going on with livestock ranching, hunting, and tourism quite well, but it left out the fact that these bears are just getting less afraid of humans in general as interaction increases. It would be wise to select against that if we can.

dogman144 3y ago
That’s a great story, sounds intense. Even with out the bear that’s dicey getting stuck in snow in the backcountry. I hike with a gun for basically those scenarios. I stay fresh with a range but it seems that warning shots are mostly as far as it goes. There is a bad story of a hunting guide getting killed near an elk carcass though, either Dubois or Cody area I can’t recall. So it can def go south if they’re looking at you more deliberately. Glad you made it! Thanks for sharing! I’m on that side less often, more the Absarokas.
- COGlory 3y ago
  > That’s a great story, sounds intense. Even with out the bear that’s dicey getting stuck in snow in the backcountry. It was very intense, but in the end we all got out safely, thankfully. >There is a bad story of a hunting guide getting killed near an elk carcass though, either Dubois or Cody area I can’t recall. Mark Uptain is probably who you're thinking of. It's dubious that he would have died if the hunter didn't abandon him. Very tragic. Anyways, I'd much rather be on this side of the Absaroka's when it comes to grizzlies!
  - dogman144 3y ago
    Yes same person. Local papers tore up the hunter for leaving.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"but it left out the fact that these bears are just getting less afraid of humans in general as interaction increases." Isn't it also possible, that the interactions are increasing, because simply more people (without a clue) are going into bear territory? Otherwise yes, the bears should not forget to avoid humans.
- COGlory 3y ago
  Yes and no. While more people are going outside than ever before, the places that they're encountering grizzlies are places no grizzlies have been sighted in 80-100 years. When I first moved to where I live now, there were (and still are obviously) three mountain ranges. Two of them were commonly regarded as grizzly free. Not anymore.

AlbertCory 3y ago

I've been a few feet away from the Kodiak subspecies (Ursus arctos middendorff). It was a grizzly-watching trip conducted by licensed guides, who carried a rifle. I don't actually know how comparable these are to the Lower 48 bears -- my impression is that on Kodiak there is so much salmon and so few people that the bears are less aggressive: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXMHAjDyQNDjFqjw8 What you said about playing dead does resonate: I remember one episode where about five of us were sitting very still, and the bear was nosing around about five feet from us. I don't think it was at all curious about us. In other cases, the guides would just raise their hands and shout at the bears and scare them away. On the other hand, I watched a nature TV show, also shot on Kodiak, where the guy noticed one bear that was giving him the stink-eye. Occasionally one will take a dislike to you and you don't want to stick around.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

> I have [...] a 10mm Is that a gun in your pocket or are you pleased to see me but underwhelmingly endowed? More seriously, I assume that's the bore of a gun. Coming from a nation without guns (or bears), I don't know what that says about it. Clarification welcome.

mindcrime 3y ago
There are a few different methods for denoting ammunition, but mostly you'll see sizes expressed in mm's, or decimal portions of an inch. Decimal portions of mm's show up as well, in things like "7.62x51" rounds, etc. Often (usually) there will be qualifiers (often the brand name of the first manufacturer of a given round, or the inventor of it). Qualifiers like "Auto", "Magnum", "NATO", etc are also common and have specific meanings. Colloquially in the US, "10mm" corresponds to "10mm Auto"[1] which is a moderately popular handgun cartridge. 10mm rounds are towards the larger / more powerful end of the popular range for handguns, but are still far from what most people would consider "packing for bear". Guns chambered for larger and more powerful rounds are available, but as with everything there are tradeoffs. With 10mm you sacrifice some "stopping power" (a simplistic calculation would be speed in feet-per-second times the mass of the projectile) per-shot, but can probably carry more total rounds, than something larger like, say, .44 Magnum[2] or .454 Casull[3]. So one weighs "would I be better off with n shots with x stopping power, or n-s shots with x*q stopping power, for some number of fewer shots s, and some additional power (as a ratio) q"? Other factors that come into play are cost, recoil, weight of the weapon itself (besides the cartridges), etc. Anyway, net-net, for people who live in bear country, from what I've seen, 10mm is often seen as a good compromise for bear protection. But I'm sure plenty of people prefer the .44 Magnum, the .454 Casull, or even something like .50AE[4]. We have bears where I live, but they're not common-place in this part of the state, and they're mostly black bears, and while they certainly can be dangerous, black bears are the smallest bear species that is common in North America. And at least around here, they still seem to be fairly "human shy" even when encountered. So on the occasions when I carry a pistol in the outdoors, I just go with the same 9mm I carry everywhere else. TBH, I'm not really thinking about bear protection much in those cases... I'm mostly carrying for protection from my fellow humans. shrug [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10mm_Auto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10mm_Auto [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.454_Casull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.454_Casull [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Action_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Action_Express

icouldntresist 3y ago

I'd use a 10mm in cougar country and get a .454 for griz TBH. /$.02

dogman144 3y ago
* guns aren’t fun, they’re a tool, do your research and don’t screw around with safety Ya I was leaning to a s&w .44 initially. Generally I think there’s a school of thought of handcannon and 1-2 shots vs more rounds off and good enough load. Reports of encounters where the handgun mattered tend to vary b/t .357, .44, 10mm bear load, etc. But, there’s a guy in an Alaska on YouTube who did a comparison of all the usual rd/weapon combos suggested, 10mm bear load + Glock 20 (what I use) did the best. I was comfortable with Glocks already so that’d wrapped it.
- icouldntresist 3y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, 10mm has better range, capacity and recoil characteristics, but I figure in most scenarios with a grizzly charging you, you're only getting off a couple of shots at close range anyway. I'm not a gun expert by any means btw.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    You need to consider weight, as well. Those big revolvers are heavy.
    - icouldntresist 3y ago
      Yeah chest holster is a must. Or suspenders with a belt and hip holster.
  - sufficer 3y ago
    My reckoning is the 10mm is a good all around safety gun. Good for bears. Great for human threats when out in the deep country. If you aren't packing a rifle that is