first off let me thank you all for responding as it is something that i am very passionate about.(you don't say) yesterday i read these latest posts and did not respond as i wanted a day to think this all out and decide on my next manouver. after sleeping on it and thinking about it here is the plan that i came up wiyh, i decided to talk to gary shelton again and ask if he would read this last thread and maybe he could guide me in some manner where we could all reach some common understanding.

i also thought that i would answer these last few posts as abjectively as i could ie not with passion just facts. after ansewering these i would just let it go and those of you could make your own decisions . after that i would not enter into any more bear discussions unless specefically asked,(which i'm sure that you will all be lining up to do).

so here is my effort to complete my goals,

dkramalc the part that you quoted was to the lady in alaska, that is the area that i meant in regards to carrying weapons. in general a group of hikers armed with bear spray will be enough for most type of attacks, the odds are not as good if you are solo.or happen to be targeted by 3 types of specific attacks
. a mature male grizzly protecting a meat pile that he has killed.
. a sow grizzly with cubs that run towards you during an encounter or with 2nd year cubs that take part in her bluff charges.
. a predatory black bear

these three types are usually fatal without some form of seriuos protection and luck.

berserker the book that you read by steven herrero is a good book. i believe it was written during the mid 80's. after this book was written gary shelton and steven herrero sat together on some panels during the mid 90's that resulted in the policies that were adopted by parks canada and our fish and wildlife tech,s. this policy was then developed into a teachable course that has been used as training by most if not all of our outdoor workers in canada and in many states. also used to train u.s park officials in many parks that have bears especially grizzly,s. one thing that is not widly known that after working with shelton ,herrero changed many of his ideas that were presented in his book especially his view that it is proper to play dead during a grizzlyattack. also you got your statistics wrong involving bears since 1980 to 2007 there have been 56 deaths in north america 29 in canada and 27 in the us. this is actual deaths and does not enclude maulings. rereading your post it looks like you meant the se i am not sure what this encompasses but ther have also been deaths in new mexico ,tennesee, new york and arizona.

also i do not believe that i have ever said that bear behaviour in my area is applicable every where ,what i have stated is that the attacks are becomming more frequent in all areas and the statistics prove this true 2000,s -23, 1990,s-22 1980,s- 10, 1970,s-9 these are for deaths only.

kutenay, this fellow is upset with me because i sent him a private message saying that it was not a good idea to call being within yards of grizzlys or blacks anything but dangerous this is true. it is not a good message to put out there when inexperienced people are asking for help. i also stand by my other comments regarding knowledge not being enough i will guarentee you that many knowledgeable people have suffered bear attacks and death for example the first spainairds in california recorded the frequent bear attacks on the native indians do you think they had no knowledge no, but they did not have spray or firearms

jak i can not see where you are from so it is hard to come back to some of your statements. ie no deaths ever. here is some points that i can make, the good info that parks canada gives out was developed mainly by gary shelton but being parks canada they cannot endorse firearms or the killing of bears this policy of preserving problem bears ie relocation or trail closures has resulted in sucessful lawsuits against them.
let us take a look at time tested ways..of dealing with bears ,first of all he has never said what these ways are,i would like to know what these are. 40 years ago bears were very different than today,the views held then were alot different than today when there was a problem with bears then they were shot . this was a learned behaviour the bears knew it. the bears of today are overprotected and are not being dealt with now as they were then they are reaserting themselves at the top of the food chain where they were before the arrival of the white population and firearms. as there populations increase so are the problems .this is happening at different rates all across the country ,our area is ahead because our populations of bears have stayed higher than other areas thru the years we are also more isolated.
my last comment to you is that it is pretty unfair to say that his book is skewed to the interests of selling books,,gunsetc without reading it once tou read it you will be able to se it for what it is the bear encounter survival guide.

this brings me to my last part of my plan,after talking with gary shelton about reading this thread, here is what he had to say,lyall after spending 35 years educating people here is what i suggest that you tell them,my strategies have been proven by 1000,s of live and work in the bush people .in the earlt 70,s it was there type of people who were suffering the brunt of the attacks as the bears came to fear people less and there right to carry firearms was reduced. in the last 15 to 20 years this is now changing the magority of the people who are getting attacked are the people with little experience or the people who refuse to arm themselves either with spray or firearms he said that in his years he has been stonewalled by people many times with preservationalist ideas or ones that thought they new better he told me that if they didn,t have the comon sense to be able to figure this out for themselves that i was wasting my time and the most important thing for me was to protect my loved ones and try to educate my kids and there kids. i thanked him and we hung up this call was placed just before i started my reply here. i found it very helpfull,i care about all of you but he is right about not being able to save the world. so in good faith i will once again suggest that his book is a good read it cant do any harm anyways take care lyall.
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