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Grin and Bear it

ShoshinShoshin No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran

Grin and Bear it...

..and this young woman did just that :)

BunksWalkerKotishka

Comments

  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    When I see a bear on its hind legs it reminds me of the hip hop pants some youth bear wear

    adamcrossleyBunkshowWalker
  • "Hey Erma! Long time no see!"

  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited July 2020

    Was 'Erma the bear' a TV show @Lionduck ?
    Here in NZ ERMA stands for Environmental Risk Management Authority

    Lionduck
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    Seeing the bear's interaction with the young woman in Mexico, got me wondering if any members here have had any close encounters with the wildlife in their neck of the woods...

    adamcrossley
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited July 2020

    @Shoshin

    We usually include one or two kayaking expeditions every summer up on the Canadian Pacific North Coast but most of the places we can get into to land & camp also have the same features that are attractive to bears as foraging sites. Sometimes we have to clear away the bear scat just to get a clean area big enough to set up our tent. Other times we've been storm stayed for days on a beach while mother bears and their trailing cubs daily traipse through our campsite to get to the shoreline for their food foraging. All parties involved just try to pretend that nobody else is there and it generally works.

    Our scariest encounter though was on a small island off the Coast of Haida Gwaii which showed no signs of any bear presence. Our camping tent is a couple of inches shy of my full length so occasional my head might push out the back wall of the tent. Now maybe since we'd already been out kayaking by that time for a couple of weeks, that I might have smelt a bit more foodish than normal but I woke up in the middle of the night to a bear sniffing my head that was pushing against the tent wall. It loudly snuffled against this bulge in the fabric for a few moments before doing a full exploratory swipe of his rasping tongue across my head separated only by a milometer of nylon.
    Apparently dissatisfied with that taste experience, it simply wandered off again.

    You just don't want to get any closer to wildlife than that.

    ShoshinKotishkapersonadamcrossley
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited July 2020

    That must have been a hair razing experience @how...

    I remember some Canadian friends who were visiting Australia back in 1970, they told me of times they were chased by bears and bears trying to get into their cabin of a night...

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    It reminds me of the story in the news not so long ago about the man who was attacked by a mountain lion in the southern US but killed it with his bare hands. I wonder if the woman in the video would have put up as much of a fight... its not a good thing when a curious bear decides you are lunch (or dinner).

  • howhow Veteran Veteran

    @Shoshin
    The funny part of that story was that I had a hand axe in the tent with me. You know, something to make me feel manly in the wilderness. When we were both awoken by the bears approach, I reached out for that axe. Jan whispered out "What should we do?".
    I tried to grasp the axe handle but found that I had been sleeping on top of my arm and it had completely fallen asleep. I didn't even have enough feeling in it to pick it up. So my words of wisdom whispered back to her at that moment were "Go back to sleep".
    Even now, 25 years later, when some new moment of courage might be called for, Jan can still jokingly chide me with a "Go back to sleep".

    KotishkalobsteradamcrossleyShoshin
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited July 2020

    @Kerome said:
    It reminds me of the story in the news not so long ago about the man who was attacked by a mountain lion in the southern US but killed it with his bare hands. I wonder if the woman in the video would have put up as much of a fight... its not a good thing when a curious bear decides you are lunch (or dinner).

    The autopsy on that particular mountain lion that was killed reported it to be young, small and malnourished. A sad story to be sure.

    I wasn't surprised to see that bear attracted to that woman and then for it to run off.
    The same smell that draws bears to fruit trees, draws them to hair product but one of the interesting things about bears is that despite their superior speed and strength, they have an innate fear of groups of opponents. Almost all unprovoked bear attacks in North America have been against groups of 1 or 2 people. Bear attack statistics indicate that when a group gets to 3-4 people or more, bears stop seeing them as potential food and start viewing them instead as a potentially dangerous pack predators.
    I am sure its an understanding that's encoded within the very genome of a bear because without such an understanding, how unlikely would it be for that bear to have progeny.

    Kotishkaadamcrossley
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    When I lived in Colorado we went camping in the Rockies and were told to put all our food in a barrel and string it up in a tree so they couldn't smell it and come pester us.

    Quite a novel experience for sure!

    I was used to looking out for black snakes not bears when I was camping growing up.

    adamcrossley
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited July 2020

    @Bunks
    I guess familiarity breeds complacency because where I can put up with bears and cougars, the one time I almost stepped on a large snake that was coiled like a rattler, I somehow transported myself 12 feet away from it before I was conscious of doing it.
    You know, like a cockroach that has a secondary brain to start its legs moving it away from danger even before it's primary brain can process the information.
    It turned out that my snake wasn't dangerous to anything larger than a frog but my legs apparently didn't get that memo until later.

    Now your little deadly Australian camping pets are what I think of as a real nightmare.

    BunksadamcrossleyKotishka
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    @how said:

    Now your little deadly Australian camping pets are what I think of as a real nightmare.

    Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of fear of snakes and spiders but the reality is that snake / spider bite deaths are extremely rare.

    I grew up in the bush and I can honestly say I could count on one hand the amount of poisonous snakes and spiders I've seen in my lifetime.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    His other hand is missing, due to a particularly interested small, fluffy, but otherwise deadly kitten...

    BunksadamcrossleyhowShoshin
  • adamcrossleyadamcrossley Veteran UK Veteran

    Amazing story @how. I’d love to go kayak-camping here in the UK. The Great Glen is supposed to be very good.

    BunksShoshin
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    @Bunks said:

    @how said:

    Now your little deadly Australian camping pets are what I think of as a real nightmare.

    Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of fear of snakes and spiders but the reality is that snake / spider bite deaths are extremely rare.

    I grew up in the bush and I can honestly say I could count on one hand the amount of poisonous snakes and spiders I've seen in my lifetime.

    Back in the early 1970s I use to go to see the snakeman in La Perouse...

    I must admit when I first arrived in Oz for quite some time I wouldn't walk anywhere barefooted for fear of poisonous snakes and spiders...I overcame my fear by studying them....

    Some people have a phobia about things that creep and crawl
    But if they took time out to study them...they would have no fear at all

    Bunkslobster
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    Yes, my ex wife was told when she moved to Oz to always check her shoes in the morning before she put them on in case a creepy crawly had got in there during the night haha

    Shoshin
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited July 2020

    A friend of mine visited Indonesia quite a few years ago, and was awoken one night by faint, erratic 'pitty-pat' noises... turning on her light, through the fine gauze of her mosquito net she spied 5 or 6 gekoes running around her room on the floor, walls, and ceiling. She frantically called Reception, to report the intruders, only to be calmly told, "oh yes, they eat all the cockroaches." She put the phone down, turned off the light and buried herself in her bed from head to toes...

    ShoshinadamcrossleyBunkslobster
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    I can't bear to think what would have happened, if he hadn't been rescued...(See what I did there...? ;) )

    lobsterShoshinJeffrey
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited July 2020

    That would have been scary @Fosdick ....
    I was born in the year of the snake ( according to the Chinese zodiac ) I hang around and often rattle on...I guess I'm a rattlesnake.... ;);)

    BunksWalker
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    @Shoshin said:
    That would have been scary @Fosdick ....
    I was born in the year of the snake ( according to the Chinese zodiac ) I hang around and often rattle on...I guess I'm a rattlesnake.... ;);)

    I'm a Pig....say no more :)

    WalkerShoshin
  • WalkerWalker Veteran Veteran

    Haha @Bunks

    Me too. (No hashtag)

    Shoshin
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited July 2020

    Along with the deadly poisonous snakes in Oz, there are also lots of harmless ones...I've encountered a few carpet snakes (small pythons ) when in the bush...

    When I was up visiting some friends who lived in the bush in Queensland, (inland close to the NSW border...back in the early 80s)...

    One morning the friend went outside to put the breakfast things on the table on the veranda and found a carpet snake coiled up on the table, we managed to scoop it up and put it into a chilly bin, and took it to my friend's neighbour's farm, he put the snake in his hay barn to feed on the rats and mice...If Aussie farmers come across carpet snakes they'll often catch them and use them as biological control agents in their hay barns...

    When I first arrived in NZ (no snakes here) it took a while for the mind not to react when I came across a stick on the path when out walking in the bush....the sight of the curved/bent stick (which resembled a snake) would often set the heart racing when the eye consciousness would mistake the stick for one....

    Hmm which reminds me of the story about perception and how appearances can be deceptive.. A Buddhist master's new attendant brought the master a bowl of soup, and engrave in the ceiling of the master's room were images of snakes, the attendant saw an image of a snake reflecting in the bowl of soup, panicked dropping the bowl and rushing out of the room....

    BunkslobsterWalker
  • BunksBunks Australia Veteran

    When I lived in NZ it took me a while to feel comfortable walking in long grass in summer without constantly scanning the ground around me for our slithery friends.......conditioning!

    Shoshin
  • FosdickFosdick in its eye are mirrored far off mountains Alaska, USA Veteran

    The only snakes you need to worry about are the ones you don't see.

    ShoshinBunkslobster
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    I am surrounded by dangerous animals on all sides. Most consider themselves human. It is worse than I thought ...

    Do they come in tamed?

    Shoshin
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