Indrajeet Singh
All images only shot in the wild - No captives.
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...Moral - always have your camera with you!
Really great story Woody, thanks for contributing to the thread.It was 2008, a year with a huge brood of periodical cicadas, I was walking on an old woods road when I saw a female black bear flipping rocks and logs to find cicada nymphs. They're a highly nutritious food for black bears and, in certain years, easy to find -- never tried them myself. The female had two cubs who were busy playing while mom was hard at work. They eventually settled on a small tree as a jungle gym and one climbed the tree as I was busy taking photos with the only camera I had with me a Canon S2, so the photos aren't very good. Suddenly one cub fell from the small branch from which it had been hanging -- the camera captured the beginning of the fall. The cub bounced and went back to playing with it's sibling. In over 50 years of wandering forest and field I've had between 200 and 250 encounters with black bears, including perhaps 50 of females with cubs. Of all that number, only two were concerning and those were both bears that were habituated to humans by either being fed or feeding on garbage.
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I read a book a while back of which I can't recall the name. Written by a Canadian biologist who worked for the wildlife or park service. He collected and analyzed every reported bear attack on record in North America. It was on the order of 90 percent of attacks were by food habituated bears or hunters being attacked by wounded animals. That said, of the predatory attacks the vast majority are by black bears not grizzlies as one might expect. Also bear spray is extremely effective against grizzlies. But with black bears after initially retreating from being sprayed they almost always return to continue the attack....I've had between 200 and 250 encounters with black bears, including perhaps 50 of females with cubs. Of all that number, only two were concerning and those were both bears that were habituated to humans by either being fed or feeding on garbage.
It happened quickly, and everyone remained calm and sensible. But we were aware of how quickly it could turn nasty.....!OMG! Did you have to change your shorts after that? That will get the heart pumping.
That is adorable!It was 2008, a year with a huge brood of periodical cicadas, I was walking on an old woods road when I saw a female black bear flipping rocks and logs to find cicada nymphs. They're a highly nutritious food for black bears and, in certain years, easy to find -- never tried them myself. The female had two cubs who were busy playing while mom was hard at work. They eventually settled on a small tree as a jungle gym and one climbed the tree as I was busy taking photos with the only camera I had with me a Canon S2, so the photos aren't very good. Suddenly one cub fell from the small branch from which it had been hanging -- the camera captured the beginning of the fall. The cub bounced and went back to playing with it's sibling. In over 50 years of wandering forest and field I've had between 200 and 250 encounters with black bears, including perhaps 50 of females with cubs. Of all that number, only two were concerning and those were both bears that were habituated to humans by either being fed or feeding on garbage.
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Great photo Woody! Thanks for sharingYeah, that was Stephen Herrero, he's retired from the university of Calgary and is probably THE expert on bear attacks, both black bears and grizzlies. Herrero has stated that the primary issue with black bears are the year and a half old males who've been driven off by mom and have problems finding food, they occasionally become predators on humans. Contrary to popular opinion, he's indicated that females with cubs apparently don't pose as much of a threat; I've probably encountered close to 50 females with cubs and none of them gave me any cause for concern. Here's a photo from a scanned slide that I took with a 200mm lens on an SLR, the female had denned beneath a fallen tree with her three new cubs. She was aware we were there and would pull the cubs back to her when they tried to crawl away, but never threatened us.
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Here's a link to one of Herrero's talks on black bear attacks --
Don't believe everything you hear or watch, there's a lot of BS on the internet and especially YouTube about bear attacks.