Woman killed by Black Bear in Oilsands camp

[GGG]

Originally Posted by puckluck2

Ok how about you walk alone in Kananaskis forests for 12 hours and I'll drive to Vancouver and will see who is more "afraid".

Deal, the drive to Vancouver is far scarier than a daytime in kananaskis. If you get seat belts I get bear spray. I actually plan on doing two such solo hikes this summer.

My point though is also that we aren't afraid of driving and we should be. If we were proportionally as afraid of cars as people are of bears in terms of their real risk no one would ever drive again.

[FLAME ENVY]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Holy crap, what a horrific nightmare. Poor girl. Maybe a culling up there isn't such a bad idea. I don't understand what bears add to the ecosystem and they are incredibly dangerous.

In the running for dumbest post ever on CP.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I thought that was an old wisetail

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Get off your pedal stool!

Meh. For all intensive purposes, he was pretty close.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by FLAME ENVY

In the running for dumbest post ever on CP.

Not calling you out but I would like to hear exactly what a black bear does to equal out nature? As far as I can tell there wouldn't be too many berries,salmon or rotten dead animal carcasses without them.

But then again nature would be better off without humans as well.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Stop reminding people you're Dess.

And if you honestly don't know the answer to that, do some research before throwing out (again) such a borderline ######ed idea.

God dammit, nevermind. Apologies for being lazy but a link will sum it up much better then I ever could.

http://westernwildlife.org/grizzly-b...logy-behavior/

This is kids stuff.

C'mon MMF, it's his schtick. It's such an obvious troll....no one is as oblivious as he is as often as he is. He posts things to start arguements, plain and simple.

[Northendzone]

Originally Posted by FLAME ENVY

In the running for dumbest post ever on CP.

Theist in question has my vote....I keep waiting for him to come back and say how he was trying to stir the pot....

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by T@T

But then again nature would be better off without humans as well.

If by human you mean large corporation then yeah.

[Wastedyouth]

Something I am surprised by at many of these remote sites, is the lack of dogs.

You would imagine if the security team employed 3 or 4 large breed but well trained dogs, bear encounters would be decreased by a large margin.

[albertGQ]

Is Sliver really Dess?

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

Is Sliver really Dess?

Why don't we ask him what he thinks of large breed dogs securing camps from bears? That's a DESS nightmare.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

Something I am surprised by at many of these remote sites, is the lack of dogs.

You would imagine if the security team employed 3 or 4 large breed but well trained dogs, bear encounters would be decreased by a large margin.

Bear encounters of this type are extremely rare. Requiring all employees to carry bear spray would probably be more effective...and more cost effective for the companies.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Zevo

Bear encounters of this type are extremely rare. Requiring all employees to carry bear spray would probably be more effective...and more cost effective for the companies.

The last thing I want is a bunch of dummies I'm working with while up there is carrying around a can of bear spray.

It's an unfortunate incident, especially with a black bear but hopefully we don't see crazy knee jerk reaction policies.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

The last thing I want is a bunch of dummies I'm working with while up there is carrying around a can of bear spray.

It's an unfortunate incident, especially with a black bear but hopefully we don't see crazy knee jerk reaction policies.

All of our crews carry bearspray during the summer and in my ten years I can recall four incidents involving bearspray and only one of them involved a bear.

One was user error as an employee used the can as a hammer after forgetting his hammer in the truck. (no sympathy there)

One was a can that was in a drawer that got pinched on opening the drawer and sprayed an employee.

The third was an employee who tried to dispose of the expired spray according to the manufacturers instructions. He filled a shop sink with water and emptied the cans underwater. It caused a bunch of skin irritation to his arms.

The bear incident was a black bear who was bluff charging. He ran towards the crew a few times and stopped five feet short before snorting and backing off to repeat. After a few times the crew moved downwind and fired the bear spray from 20 feet. The bear turned around and left.

Bear spray does work and I wouldn't want to spend too much time in the bush without it. Bear bangers also work. I carry both when I go hiking and have only used the bangers a few times to chase bears away. At one point I had a grizzly standing between myself and my truck and a single shot from the banger sent him running.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

The last thing I want is a bunch of dummies I'm working with while up there is carrying around a can of bear spray.

It's an unfortunate incident, especially with a black bear but hopefully we don't see crazy knee jerk reaction policies.

I wouldn't consider bear spray a "crazy knee jerk reaction", if that is what you're suggesting. This is pretty standard issue for hikers who go anywhere that bears may frequent.

A crazy knee jerk reaction would be armed guards or culling bears.

[SportsJunky]

I read that she was part of a crew of seven workers. The others tried to scare the bear with air horns after it grabbed her. I'm kind of surprised nobody grabbed something - a shovel, a tree branch and forced it to let go. Maybe they did but the Herald article doesn't mention any sort of physical intervention being used.

Regardless, that's a memory the other six aren't likely to ever get rid of. Terrible.

[nik-]

I'm not sure how physical I'd be willing to be with the bear that was mauling my co-worker.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I read that she was part of a crew of seven workers. The others tried to scare the bear with air horns after it grabbed her. I'm kind of surprised nobody grabbed something - a shovel, a tree branch and forced it to let go. Maybe they did but the Herald article doesn't mention any sort of physical intervention being used.

Regardless, that's a memory the other six aren't likely to ever get rid of. Terrible.

That is really surprising if there were that many people together in a close group. As there have been 0 bear attacks on groups greater than 4. The closest one is where a group of 6 or 7 in Alaska were attacked by a Grizzly. But if you read the report they were crossing a stream and the first guy accross started hiking before the rest of the team got a accross so was alone when he encountered the bear.

Thats a tough situation though if someone is being attacked by a bear you go in without being armed with anything and your just as likely to get mauled as well. If you had a shovel, some surveying equipment I can see trying to interveen but to just try to wrestle the bear is asking a lot out of someone.

[Bill Bumface]

Ridiculous statements in this thread.

Bears provide no value and are dangerous? If that's what you consider "dangerous" we need to pretty much get rid of everything and pave the earth.

And walking around Kananaskis for 12 hours is scary? I spend hundreds of hours out there every summer and I've never even seen a bear. Let alone a trail strewn with human corpses. A head on accident on highway 1 scares me a lot more than running into a bear.

I bet horses kill more people per year than bears. Kill all horses. Kill everything!

[pylon]

Originally Posted by puckluck2

Ok how about you walk alone in Kananaskis forests for 12 hours and I'll drive to Vancouver and will see who is more "afraid".

I hike in Kananaskis alone all the time. I carry bear spray, and a 10" Bowie knife on a chest sheath when I am alone. Not saying that I would expect to go hand to hand with a bear with a knife and survive, but it is better than nothing if the bear spray doesn't work.

I actually had a really scary encounter last year. I was on the Canadian Everest trail, which is a pretty lame hike between the upper and lower lakes, that is usually a pretty heavily frequented trail. But it was early May, and I was the only guy up there at the time. There was one car in the parking lot, and it was mine.

About 1 km in, I hear rustling in the bushes, and all of a sudden a black bear cub goes shooting across the trial into the woods about 30 feet from me. About 5 seconds later, another cub goes blasting through like a lightning shot, with a big raven following him. I look down the ridge, and the 2 cubs were wrestling with each other... just playing. The bird is watching them like WTF from a tree above, I am watching them thinking what a cute moment, then all of a sudden I realize "Where's mom?" I heard some rustling in the trees up above me, I took my bear spray out of the holster, and just started booking it back the way I came since it was downhill. It was pretty damn spooky. There is zero cell phone reception up there if you get in trouble, and nobody knew where I was, I just decided while I was having a coffee that morning to head out.

That being said, I am in their domain when I am out in the woods, and I wouldn't expect sympathy if I ever got killed by one in the forest. They are incredibly beautiful, majestic animals, and relish the chances I get to sight one, when we are separated by a river, a car door, or a shelter.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by pylon

I hike in Kananaskis alone all the time. I carry bear spray, and a 10" Bowie knife on a chest sheath when I am alone.

Maybe I'm too nonchalant about bears, because that sounds like extreme overkill to me.

I'm curious what the odds of being mugged or raped are compared to the odds of a bear attack. For example, what should an outdoor woman's first purchase be? Pepper spray or bear spray?

I might be totally out to lunch and naïve for not worrying about bears, but every one I've encountered has had zero interest in hanging around to investigate the human further.