Tip of the hat to Mark Wadsworth for pointing me in the direction of yet another tragic animal attack
Horror as hiker killed by grizzly bear after taking photos of animal for eight minutes in Alaska's Denali National Park
Tragic?
Well it was for the bear at least.
A state trooper shot and killed the bear on Saturday, and investigators will examine its stomach contents and use other tests to confirm it's the animal that killed the hiker.
But.
There's no indication that the man's death was the result of anything other than a bear attack, investigators said, adding that it's the first known fatal mauling in the park's nearly century-long history.'Over the years, and especially since the 1970s, the park has worked very diligently to minimize the conflict between humans and wildlife in the park,' Anderson said.
I wonder why that is?
Prior to receiving a permit to hike in the area, all backpackers in the park receive mandatory bear awareness training that teaches them to stay at least a quarter-mile away from bears, and to slowly back away if they find themselves any closer.
Sounds sensible advice to me, you don’t have to tell me twice, in fact in my own daily personal risk assessment I tend to stay several hundred miles away from bears at all times.
Although I do wonder what bear awareness training consists of, I would of thought holding up a picture of a bear and saying “This is a fucking bear, it will fucking kill you if you get too close or you piss it off” would cover it.
It’s a basic, do you know why cavemen lived in caves? to keep away from the fucking bears, it’s primal, who needs telling this?
I wouldn’t have thought anyone needed to be told that, but I guess in our spoon fed, led by the nose, don’t think for yourself society, some people need it expressly pointed out to them.
Perhaps this chap hadn’t received the training?
Investigators confirmed that the hiker had received that training.
So some fuckwit decides to ignore all the advice and sidle up to a bear to get a few ‘good shots’ and the bear gets one in instead.
Unfortunately once again we see bears doing what bears do ( apart from the other thing that they do in the woods) gets bear dead because some idiot thinks the rules don’t apply to him.
I almost feel this qualifies as a Darwin Award candidate.
Addendum: Daily Mail writers bears do not ‘scurry’. Mice scurry , bears go at what ever pace they want.
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"Although I do wonder what bear awareness training consists of, I would of thought holding up a picture of a bear and saying “This is a fucking bear, it will fucking kill you if you get too close or you piss it off” would cover it."
ReplyDeleteI damned well would if I ran that course! ;)
And they seem such lovable, cuddly creatures.
ReplyDeleteMore future Darwin Award contenders...
ReplyDeleteThe assumption in your report is that the humanoid did not keep a sensible, informed distance from the bear he was photographing. (I assume taking shots does mean taking pictures and not any other kind if shot).
ReplyDeleteWhat if, while using a long lens to capture the antics of one cuddly bear, there was an unexpected other one that was a bit miffed it was not going to be in the picture, it being a bit closer to the guy with the photography equipment, and therefore, not in focus. It could have just done what bears do naturally, not wishing to be too friendly.
Where I live in Canada, we have semi-regular 'negative Bear / Human interactions', even in the suburbs. Normally it's a Black Bear who usually avoid humans. Occasionally someone pisses off a grizzly, at which point they become Canadian fast food.
ReplyDelete