Either way, I'm sure they were in the tent and couldn't run given those weather conditions. The food in the tent thing, is of course a wild guess and an attempt at finding a reason why the bear would attack them in the tent. They were experienced and I'm sure they knew better, but complacency is real.
None of us know for sure obviously, but I would be blown away if experienced backcountry campers would ever bring food into a tent. I get it that people are dumb and complacency happens across an entire population, but once you narrow it down to people who tent in remote areas, that's a pretty rare whoopsy-doodle.
I feel in situations like this, we clamour for reason. The prospect that somebody can do everything correct and still get eaten is terrifying. We all want to be able to say it wouldn't happen to us because we're smarter or more prepared. The uncomfortable truth is sh*t happens and sometimes there's nothing you can do.
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None of us know for sure obviously, but I would be blown away if experienced backcountry campers would ever bring food into a tent. I get it that people are dumb and complacency happens across an entire population, but once you narrow it down to people who tent in remote areas, that's a pretty rare whoopsy-doodle.
I feel in situations like this, we clamour for reason. The prospect that somebody can do everything correct and still get eaten is terrifying. We all want to be able to say it wouldn't happen to us because we're smarter or more prepared. The uncomfortable truth is sh*t happens and sometimes there's nothing you can do.
Yup. Like, every day you drive you risk something bad happening no matter what you do. And it's a much much higher risk than a camper getting killed by a bear.
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None of us know for sure obviously, but I would be blown away if experienced backcountry campers would ever bring food into a tent. I get it that people are dumb and complacency happens across an entire population, but once you narrow it down to people who tent in remote areas, that's a pretty rare whoopsy-doodle.
I feel in situations like this, we clamour for reason. The prospect that somebody can do everything correct and still get eaten is terrifying. We all want to be able to say it wouldn't happen to us because we're smarter or more prepared. The uncomfortable truth is sh*t happens and sometimes there's nothing you can do.
I think it is probably as simple as hungry bear treating the people or dog as prey. These types of attacks are rare, but not unheard of. There doesn't need to be any other reason or an error made by the casualties. Sometimes you can do everything right and it doesn't matter.
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I think it is probably as simple as hungry bear treating the people or dog as prey. These types of attacks are rare, but not unheard of. There doesn't need to be any other reason or an error made by the casualties. Sometimes you can do everything right and it doesn't matter.
Unfortunately, their gravest mistake could have been having fido with them.
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None of us know for sure obviously, but I would be blown away if experienced backcountry campers would ever bring food into a tent. I get it that people are dumb and complacency happens across an entire population, but once you narrow it down to people who tent in remote areas, that's a pretty rare whoopsy-doodle.
I feel in situations like this, we clamour for reason. The prospect that somebody can do everything correct and still get eaten is terrifying. We all want to be able to say it wouldn't happen to us because we're smarter or more prepared. The uncomfortable truth is sh*t happens and sometimes there's nothing you can do.
Agreed. I mean, it could have been as simple as the bear smelling food on the dog or the dog itself or a little bit of a smear on their clothes that they forgot about or didn't think it was significant enough to worry about because it wasn't actual food. Sometimes people focus too much on intentional and forget about accidental.
As many pointed out, the odds of being mauled by a bear is very, very small. According to this, 48 people have been killed by Grizzlies since 1980 in North America. 43 years, 48 people with the majority Western Canada and Alaska. It's about 1-2 per year fatality wise and the numbers likely get even smaller on average when you look at Alberta vs BC and Alaska's statistics.
Based on how many people go into the back country, even at this time when it's "higher risk" and they did everything right as far as it is known, it's still a risk that's ridiculously small. It's a crazy one off.
According to a few websites, there's around 5-6 people who die per year due to a vehicle collision with wildlife on the highway. It seems that you're multiple times more likely to die in a collision with an animal on the way to a back country hike in Alberta than being specifically mauled by a grizzly.
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It requires a bit of extrapolation and speculation to consider how this applies to bears, but we know that they are often more curious than anything. It's hard to say what they make of humans, though there is likely ancestral knowledge passed down that we are wildcards.
We also know that bears generally prefer to scavenge than exert the energy/take on the risk involved in hunting - they literally prefer the 'low hanging fruit'. I imagine their 'Terminator' brains are probably running subconscious calculations on any encounter, and are unlikely to take purely aggressive action (aggressive-defensive another story) unless a whole bunch of stars align, including a desperate need for food.
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We also know that bears generally prefer to scavenge than exert the energy/take on the risk involved in hunting - they literally prefer the 'low hanging fruit'. I imagine their 'Terminator' brains are probably running subconscious calculations on any encounter, and are unlikely to take purely aggressive action (aggressive-defensive another story) unless a whole bunch of stars align, including a desperate need for food.
This is true with bears and most predators. They prefer not to risk injury or expending too much energy for food and will scavenge or go after the sick or injured.
Bears are reasonably intelligent and curious animals. Some biologists believe that they may be one of the most intelligent land mammals outside of humans and primates. They will usually observe their potential prey and by instinct, will calculate the risk versus reward. Something made this bear think the risk was worth the reward. Perhaps the bear was desperate for a nutritional windfall to the point that it was worth the gamble. Maybe the couple was tired and slow, so the bear thought they were easy targets.
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I think hikers out on a multi-day hike are packing as light as they can. The “portable” electric bear fence that Cabela’s stocks is 15lbs and costs $500. Hindsight is 20/20 and it may have helped, but it’s a big piece of kit to haul around.
I do wonder if the time of year had anything to do with it. Maybe this time, just prior hibernation, with all the bear activity isn’t the safest time to travel the backcountry.
Whatever happened to just tying little bells to the local brush as a 'high tech' early warning system?
Granted...if it were me...I'd have this setup. If its good enough for Tim Curry its good enough for me.
NSFW!
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Back-country camping - good.
Back-country camping with dog - dangerous.
It’s definitely not this simple, a lot banks on the type of dog and training. The reason parks want dogs on leashes is the untrained ones that go on up ahead And bring back a chasing bear or moose with it. I won’t leave mine at home any time I go back country. She’s alerted many critters long before I was able to put eyes on them.
As someone touched on your likely in more danger driving Deerfoot daily that having major issues with bears in the wild… that being said I’ll take bears all day over an upset mama moose. They’ve had me far more on edge way more often
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Good training doesn't mean #### when you're talking about a predator potentially desperate for food with dwindling options and the ability to smell 7 times better than a hound.
My dad told me stories of how bears raided his friends camp and tore into their canned food because they could pick up on the contents of said cans. Pretty wild.
Given that, your well trained dog sitting in your tent is like a warm sandwich in a bag to any desperate bear in a pretty vast vicinity. Me personally, I wouldn't want to be sleeping in that bag with it.
That's nice that you feel consoled by the odds, and are willing to roll the dice in the backcountry just because it's inconvenient to leave the dog at home. Personally I'd want to boost my odds of incident-free travel as much as humanly possible given that the worst case scenario was just trotting around in our own backyard and could have easily crossed paths with any one of us like it did with these hikers.
Last edited by TrentCrimmIndependent; 10-05-2023 at 09:49 PM.
Good training doesn't mean #### when you're talking about a predator potentially desperate for food with dwindling options and the ability to smell 7 times better than a hound.
My dad told me stories of how bears raided his friends camp and tore into their canned food because they could pick up on the contents of said cans. Pretty wild.
Given that, your well trained dog sitting in your tent is like a warm sandwich in a bag to any desperate bear in a pretty vast vicinity. Me personally, I wouldn't want to be sleeping in that bag with it.
That's nice that you feel consoled by the odds, and are willing to roll the dice in the backcountry just because it's inconvenient to leave the dog at home. Personally I'd want to boost my odds of incident-free travel as much as humanly possible given that the worst case scenario was just trotting around in our own backyard and could have easily crossed paths with any one of us like it did with these hikers.
I bring my dog because she is bred to chase off predators and her breed is used by fnw to push out grizzly and black bears. I’m not concerned about my odds out in the wild so much as I am taking public transportation around the city. If I got into a situation I know that having my dog gave me a chance to get out of there. Again I don’t frequent the parks just the edges during sheep season but I sleep easy knowing I have my dog and lead bear spray near by.
This thread did a great job of exposing the loonies on here, if nothing else. Nearly spat my drink out reading that people would genuinely prefer bear spray to a firearm in a bear attack.
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This thread did a great job of exposing the loonies on here, if nothing else. Nearly spat my drink out reading that people would genuinely prefer bear spray to a firearm in a bear attack.
Not me man. What were those sticks that let you juggle another stick? Those are the ticket.
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