[at-l] Bear cables dont work!

[kahley@ptd.net (kahley)]

someone wrote:
>What about the lady in the Smokies who was eaten by a bear and her cub a
>couple of years ago?  Where does she fit into your picture?  Just asking.
>It's a different viewpoint, for sure.

Smokies bears aren't hunted so they have lost respect/fear for/of people and
the bear wasn't alone which complicates things as well.  At one time there 
was a
suspicion that there were three bears involved which is totally atypical since
the third bear was said to be of a different size/larger than the yearling .
Bears aren't pack animals and Papa doesn't travel with the family nor does
Momma allow an older offspring to hang around once she is preggers 
again.  She'll
allow a yearling but the idea that she would travel with a third bear is 
very odd.
It could have been that she had two yearlings with her and one was noticeably
bigger than the other, but I'm not sure the idea of a third bear was confirmed.

Also, that one wasn't about people food as the hiker's pack, which 
contained food,
was untouched.  Who knows?  No one alive to fill in the details.  My guess
is that the woman ran which triggers the 'prey' button in the bear who would
have no problem catching her.

You can read about it here
http://www.imagesbuilder.com/gsmnp/bear-attack-in-smokies.html

"It's important to put things in perspective," Clark
said. "For every human that's been killed by a black
bear since we've been recording bear-human deaths,
there have been 180 people killed by bee stings."

There are hikers who make it GA>ME and never
see a bear.  a bear sighting is a high point for most hikers.
For the standard (?) advice as to how to react in a bear encounter
BLACK BEAR that is..... not ursis horribilis, ie Mister Griz, check out

http://smokymtns.com/bears4.htm
http://smokymtns.com/bearkill.htm

Note that bears can't see very well which is why we now think they are
attracted to brightly colored tents and hikers because they can see them
from farther away and come to investigate.  Being big and omnivorous, it's
their habit to investigate everything, to see if they can eat it.

I guess I put them in the same mode as I was when I was just starting
out as a thief.  If The consequences for my first theft were scary
enough, maybe there would not have been a second theft.  If a bear
encounters a whole lotta resistance, the first time he wanders into a
camp or shelter, he'll be less likely to do it again and again until he
winds up hurting someone or getting himself shot.

It's a tough situation.  Most of us want to see a bear and if one
comes into camp, well that's a great opportunity to see one up
close.  Very tempting to let it do it's bear thing while we watch
but since it's "bear thing" is all about stealing people food, we
are setting it up to get shot if we don't chase it away.