Fatal Bear Attacks - North America

jakeman said:

Do you know the state reimbursement rate for livestock killed by wolves in Wyoming? It's 7 times the market rate. Lion & bear depredation brings 3.5 times the market rate.

Seems to me if a rancher is working on a shoestring, having wolves take a bunch of your cattle might be not so terrible, if you were planning on selling them anyway. The ranchers in Wyoming are not suffering financially because of the loss of livestock to wolves. Quite the contrary, the state is compensating them more than fairly.

The myths surrounding wolves in the West aren't likely to ever go away, but removing an apex predator and a keystone species is never a good idea, and reintroducing them into Yellowstone and properly managing them there and in the surrounding states will always be a good thing.

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dennishoddy said:

Why would they pay them 7 times market rate? I'm not disagreeing but that sounds silly.

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I can only see this if it is a case of the mother cow being killed, thus losing a number of year's worth of calves from her. If the wolves are only getting the calves, that would only change if it was a heifer calf that would have been kept for breeding.

SoonerP226 said:

There are stories of Eskimo women taking them with .22s, too. I'd take the shot if I had to, but I wouldn't want bet my life on it. Years ago, I read a story (maybe in Field & Stream) wherein the writer had gone to Alaska to hunt bears with a .44Mag. One night, a bear invited himself into the cabin, and the writer (with his .44) and his guide (with a .45-ish caliber rifle) managed to dissuade him from staying for supper, but it wasn't until the bear decided to leave that he skeedaddled.

They found the bear some time later, having expired a surprising distance from the cabin. When they dressed it out, they discovered that the rifle had done the real damage; the .44Mags had all hit home and expanded on impact, but not one of them had penetrated the bear's chest muscles.

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I lived in Barrow, Alaska when natives were still allowed to hunt polar bears. I met a handful of older native men that only used a .22 Hornet round for hunting. Polar bear, walrus, seal or caribou.
I thought it was crazy but their success spoke for itself.

I’ll throw in my and say I agree with returning wolves to Yellowstone to attempt to restore better balance to the system. I’m no ecologist, but I think it’s foolish to drastically alter natural ecosystems that we all benefit from. Even seemingly very small changes can have disastrous effects (I recall something about Yellowstone having tons of birds dying because they added some new species of fish). Humans are pretty bad at predicting the consequences of their “management” of natural resources. Decades of dam-building in the 20th century allowed people to build and farm in flood plains that were too risky before. But dams have robbed the land downstream of the sediment that helped make it fertile farmland, deepened riverbeds downstream which lowers the groundwater table and adds cost to irrigation, encouraged invasive species that reduce wild food sources for humans, and threatened the existence of wild salmon in North America.

Don’t even get me started on beavers.

Louro said:

Well, sometime you eat the Bear and sometime the bear eat you. You really don't need a big gun to kill a bear.

https://www.wideopenspaces.com/alaska-man-kills-charging-brown-bear-with-a-9mm-pistol/

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Phil Shoemaker is probably the country's foremost authority on big bears. He knows their habits, traits, and most of all their anatomy. He's probably the only living soul comfortable enough around them to carry what he did.

I won't be in big bear woods ever with anything less than a 10mm with a heavy flat metplat bullet from Buffalo, Underwood or my own handloads.

Ethan N said:

I’ll throw in my and say I agree with returning wolves to Yellowstone to attempt to restore better balance to the system. I’m no ecologist, but I think it’s foolish to drastically alter natural ecosystems that we all benefit from. Even seemingly very small changes can have disastrous effects (I recall something about Yellowstone having tons of birds dying because they added some new species of fish). Humans are pretty bad at predicting the consequences of their “management” of natural resources. Decades of dam-building in the 20th century allowed people to build and farm in flood plains that were too risky before. But dams have robbed the land downstream of the sediment that helped make it fertile farmland, deepened riverbeds downstream which lowers the groundwater table and adds cost to irrigation, encouraged invasive species that reduce wild food sources for humans, and threatened the existence of wild salmon in North America.

Don’t even get me started on beavers.

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With regards to that in bold letters above, Oregon learned that lesson the hard way. They decided to plant grasses along the beaches in some area many years ago to combat beach erosion. What the grass did was catch the sand as it blew in, then grow above that sand to catch more. (See where that process is going?) Yeppers, Oregon now has what it calls the Oregon Dunes that are now covering up full grown trees.

Waldport, OR has an area just north of the inlet to Alsea Bay that blows sand badly almost every winter. Enough so that the sand builds up to the height of the eaves of the homes in that area. When the homeowners dig their houses back out, guess where that HAVE to put that sand...

...yeppers...

...right back onto the beach. Just below is an image taken from Google Maps' Satellite View.



This next picture is of the beach sand that has blown over PAST the homes and towards the street behind the beach houses.

yukonjack said:

I lived in Barrow, Alaska when natives were still allowed to hunt polar bears. I met a handful of older native men that only used a .22 Hornet round for hunting. Polar bear, walrus, seal or caribou.
I thought it was crazy but their success spoke for itself.

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I watch all the Alaska shows. I see the inuits out with old WWI bolt guns all the time taking dangerous game.

Shadowrider said:

Phil Shoemaker is probably the country's foremost authority on big bears. He knows their habits, traits, and most of all their anatomy. He's probably the only living soul comfortable enough around them to carry what he did.

I won't be in big bear woods ever with anything less than a 10mm with a heavy flat metplat bullet from Buffalo, Underwood or my own handloads.

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When we go back up to Alaska it will be an unguided backwoods trip to fly fish for salmon. Bears will be in the area. I've reduced my 7 3/8" Ruger Super Redhawk to a 5.5" barrel because it will be much easier to carry. It will be loaded with https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=563 Mono metal solids that don't deform the meplat when hitting bone.
Solids work on cape buffalo and elephants, so I'm going that direction for penetration.

yukonjack said:

I lived in Barrow, Alaska when natives were still allowed to hunt polar bears. I met a handful of older native men that only used a .22 Hornet round for hunting. Polar bear, walrus, seal or caribou.
I thought it was crazy but their success spoke for itself.

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It doesn't sound that crazy. Hunting, where you can take your time to place the shot and you don't have to worry about adrenaline spikes in either yourself or the beast, is a very different story than shooting in self defense.