| Chapter 1 NEGOTIATING WITH BEARS * Frontiers of peaceful coexistence * Bear viewing * Diplomacy & the Negotiation safety strategy * Conventional wisdom, bearanoia and the Militant strategy o Analysis of bear-human conflicts o Relative injury rates: bears vs. other hazards o Injury rates vs. risks o Over-generalization * Assessing risk o Attacks and charges o Crying wolf o Small risk or superstition? o Relative risk The danger of ignorance is less what you don’t know, than what you know that isn’t so. FRONTIERS OF PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE During the 42 years since I was shadowed by Phantom, I’ve had an estimated 10,000+ encounters with other grizzly/brown and black bears while studying their behavior and ecology.1.1 Nearly all those bears remained peaceful or fled. Rarely have I faced serious aggression, and I’ve never been injured. My experience is by no means unique. For decades starting in 1919, Jim and Laurette Stanton lived in Knight Inlet on the British Columbian coast where brownies were daily visitors to their yard. Likewise, starting in the 1940s, Stan Price and his two (successive) wives lived for decades among numerous brownies at Pack Creek on Alaska’s Admiralty Island. Neither couple was ever mauled, although Stan was disciplined lightly once or twice when he tapped the wrong bear with his walking stick.1.2 Nor have bears ever attacked Charlie Vandergaw who, for almost 20 summers, has received daily visits from over a dozen black and brown bears at his cabin in the Yetna River drainage west of Anchorage, Alaska.1.3 Extensive one-on-one experience with bears has also been gained by other biologists and naturalists including Will Troyer, Jim Faro, Derek Stonorov, Mike Luque, Al Egbert, Tom Bledsoe, Larry Aumiller, Colleen Matt, Lynn Rogers, Terry DeBruyen, Sue Mansfield, Ben Kilham, Tom Smith, Polly Hessing, Brad Josephs, and Vitaly Nikolayenko, as well as by a number of photographers including Kent Fredriksson, Buck Wilde, Charley Russell, Michio Hoshino, and Tim Treadwell. So too, many viewing guides like Gary Porter and Linda Hunter have spent day after day close to bears each summer for years.1.4 Many guides have had thousands, if not tens of thousands of close encounters of the furred kind; and our viewing clients account for tens of millions more close encounters, especially on the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia and in northern Minnesota. Invaluable insights have also come from bear stewards like Ann Bryant, Steve Searles, and Sylvia Dolson, who have gently curbed nuisance behavior by hundreds of blackies in Californian and British Columbian communities.1.5 Together, we have had more than 10,000-fold as many benign encounters with bears as other people have had dangerously aggressive encounters that appear in the popular books1.6 and scientific databases1.7 which are cited to justify treating any bear as though it is likely to attack. So our experiences should weigh at least as heavily as attack cases when anyone assesses which ways of dealing with bears give the best results. Anyone involved in bear safety, either as an instructor or as a practitioner, is well advised to look closely at how peaceful relations with bears are best established, discover reasons why this has been far safer than conventional wisdom predicted, and learn how to apply these insights to live in greater harmony with bears wherever they are encountered. The challenge of benign coexistence isn’t confined to bears, of course. It could apply to any large, potentially dangerous animal. In North America, we have wolf and coyote, puma and jaguar, as well as white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, bison, wild sheep, muskoxen, and mountain goat, in addition to alligator, poisonous reptiles, sharks and whales – all of whom have injured or killed people from time to time. In Africa, there are lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, hippo, eland, crocodile, and a host of other deadly fauna. Yet, amazingly, some people have successfully and comfortably coexisted with many of these species. For example, up until recently, African Bushmen rarely fell prey to the Kalahari desert’s lions, leopards and hyenas, despite the Bushmens’ lack of effective weapons. (The poison arrows with which they killed game acted too slowly to stop an attacker.) 1.8 Biologists Mark and Delia Owens were equally fortunate during several years while they researched Kalahari wildlife. They wandered on foot unarmed among all those predators, even at night; and all those species returned the favor by visiting their camp. One leopard habitually rested on the brush awning over their bed. Yet, even when the predators were starving and consuming virtually anything else even remotely edible, they did not attack the researchers.1.9 Unfortunately, that “truce” between humans and animals ended when the influx of cattle-raising peoples disrupted the local ecology, eliminating most wild prey and forcing the predators to focus on livestock. Once the predators began killing humans that guarded livestock, it was only a small step to eating the guards and then other people.1.8, 1.9 (Alaska Natives have told me of having a similar “truce” with bears until mainstream civilization intervened.) For our ever-expanding and habitat-consuming human population to continue coexisting with bears and other large animals without decimating them or falling victim to them, it behooves us to carefully search for clues in stories of success as well as failure. Each attack is a failure where precautions were either ignored or inadequate. One cornerstone of coexistence is establishing mutual trust and respect – the subject of our next few chapters. Then I will explain how to approach bears with minimal risk and disturbance, as well as ways you might respond when a bear approaches you. Some of these techniques also apply to other species. BEAR VIEWING “Approach bears? Let them approach you?” Being close might produce better photos. But isn’t it suicidal?” you might ask. “Doesn’t that violate the most basic rules of bear safety?” Yes and no. Certainly, the foundation of conventional safety advice is avoiding bears. And close viewing has long been condemned by many wildlife professionals– an attitude allegedly justified by the long-predicted mauling death of Tim Treadwell. Yet, Tim’s case was exceptional. Of the tens of thousands of people who view bears every year, very few suffer even minor injuries, and then mainly from trying to touch or hand-feed the animals. You are arguably at greater risk traveling to and from a viewing site than while viewing – so long as you view under the right circumstances, using the right strategy and techniques. All advice given in this book should be understood in the context of safety advice in my other books. Just because there isn’t room here to repeat every standard precaution doesn’t mean most don’t apply most of the time. Think your options through very carefully. Figure 1.1. Discrete distances: Unless you are a bear expert or guided by one, bears are usually best watched from at least 50-400 yards away. DIPLOMACY & THE NEGOTIATION SAFETY STRATEGY Now that huge numbers of people are closely viewing bears every year, it is essential that they have a safety strategy as suitable to benign encounters as to aggressive encounters – a strategy that assures the welfare of both people and animals. To meet this challenge, the Bear Viewing Association offers its negotiation strategy: 1. If you don’t want encounters, avoid them. 2. During a chance encounter or one you seek, minimize risk through diplomacy. * Neutralize any interest in you. Enhance trust and respect for you so as to avoid provoking or encouraging aggression. * Failing that, if the bear becomes dangerously protective or competitive, but not predatory, try appeasing it. 3. Otherwise, try intimidating and deterring it, for instance with your body language, pepper spray or a marine flare. 4. As a last resort, kill the bear. Diplomacy is the art of enhancing mutual trust, respect and cooperation through communication. You need to anticipate how animals might interpret your behavior, so that you can do the right things at the right times. Your body language – postures, gestures, facial expressions, vocalizations, etc. – should be tailored to the bruin’s mood and motivation. These are assessed by monitoring its body language – an art introduced here in Chapter 2, then detailed in a companion volume, The Language of Bears. Diplomacy is often less about what we “say” to animals then about what we “hear” from them. It’s about being so sensitive to animals that all they need to do to win our cooperation is “whisper;” no need to “shout,” much less injure anyone. Methods of avoiding, deterring and killing bears – so-called militant tactics – have been explained at length in my prior book, the Alaska Magnum Bear Safety Manual. This book focuses on diplomatic tactics that have worked well for me and for other experts (biologists, naturalists, guides, photographers, and rangers) near the Alaska seacoast, especially on the eastern shore of the Alaska Peninsula from below Unimak Island up along Katmai National Park and Cook Inlet almost to Anchorage. Hopefully, diplomacy will work as well for you as it has for us, both when you seek viewable bears and when you encounter bears by chance, for instance while hiking, fishing or watching other wildlife. If diplomacy usually works so well, why has it been virtually ignored in conventional bear safety training? Why do wildlife biologists, wildlife managers, and forest- or park-rangers across North America almost unanimously advise avoiding all bears, deterring any bear you can’t avoid, or killing any bear that you can’t deter – a fundamentally militant strategy? The primary cause is bearnoia — assuming that every bear is unpredictably aggressive. That’s like expecting every stranger to be a mugger. It’s like watching the world through eyes so bloodshot that all you can see is red; all you feel is fear and anger. Bearnoia goes hand in glove with an erroneous belief that the only safe bear is one deathly afraid of us. To the extent that diplomacy lessens the fear of bears towards humans, it allegedly makes the bruins bolder and more dangerous. Better to kill a bold bear than risk it later injuring someone. Many experts would argue that the effectiveness and universal appropriateness of militancy has been thoroughly tested and confirmed to a scientific certainty. Not so. Granted, militancy is the best approach in some locations under some circumstances; but not everywhere, and not all the time – not where the public wants to live in harmony with bears and perhaps enjoy watching them occasionally; not when militancy actually intensifies risk of injury by a bear. Even experts who don’t oppose diplomacy, may not see its value. For typical training is done by and for people who prefer relying for protection on bullying bears or killing them.* Unfortunately, few safety instructors know diplomacy firsthand well enough to assess its value, much less to practice and teach it. How much diplomatic skill do you need to stay safe near bears? This varies from case to case. Where bears both trust and respect people – usually, where the bears aren’t hunted and don’t compete with us for food – they may be so cooperative that even complete novices can wander among them at negligible risk. This is often the case, for instance, during July–September near Brooks River in Katmai National Park, where hundreds of viewers or anglers and dozens of brown bears share the same trails and frequently “surprise” one another at close range. Encounters also tend to be easy-going on the Katmai Coast, especially at Hallo Bay and Geographic Harbor, so long as viewers remain in groups of at least 5 people and are visible to bears from at least 100 yards away. However, even at those sites, bears are more boldly curious and sometimes bullying against people who are alone or in pairs. And tolerance for humans can be substantially lower on areas of the coast or inland where bears encounter viewers less often or where food is less abundant. Even at the best sites, tolerance is seasonal. It is highest during July-August. It is lower during spring and fall when food is scarce, as well as during June when bears are competing most intensely for social rank and mates. Tolerance is lowest–generally too low for safe viewing–during the month just before and just after hibernation. [It was in early October, when salmon were very scarce and bears were desperate to add fat for hibernation, that Tim Treadwell and his fiancé were killed and eaten.] So don’t be complacent; don’t depend on luck. Even under the best conditions, you may encounter situations that demand every bit of knowledge and skill you can master. Indeed, there may be situations where neither the advice given here nor any other precautions suffice. Use all techniques with care. Expect the unexpected and be prepared to innovate. Be wary, but not bearanoid. So long as “bear lovers” remain the major proponents of diplomacy, it may continue to be ignored by wildlife management agencies. For people preferring live bears have far less political clout than bear “hunters.” Only recently have the numbers of viewers and their economic contributions to the economy (roughly $100 million per year) surpassed those of hunters and trappers even in areas where bear viewing is most common – on the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, and in northern Minnesota.1.10 Furthermore, little of the money from viewing ends up in budgets of wildlife management agencies. State agencies are supported almost entirely by sale of harvest licenses and by taxes on arms and ammunition. Last but not least, the primacy of harvest over other benefits from wildlife is imbedded in the statutes if not the constitutions of many states, including Alaska. ANALYSIS OF BEAR-HUMAN CONFLICTS Bearanoia bias isn’t solely a product of ignorance or prejudice, however. It can accidentally arise from formal analysis of bear aggression.1.7 If all the bear-human encounters you study are conflicts, it’s hard to avoid prejudging any new encounter as another conflict. Bearanoia can also arise from focusing safety training too tightly on attack prevention. Even the best conventional books and videos– e.g., Staying Safe in Bear Country1.11 – may explain how you can read ursine body language to determine whether or not an aggressive bear is predatory; but they don’t explain how to distinguish aggression from peaceful motivations such as curiosity or playfulness – (see Chapter 2). Hence, conventional advice inadvertently teaches people to see any bear as bold or aggressive unless it flees. Let’s consider an example: If you scan reports of bear aggression, you will likely find stories of a bear that approached someone despite shouts or other attempts by the person to scare the bear away. Even when a bear is walking, not running, toward a person, this is usually seen as boldness, if not as higher intensity aggression. (Even professional bear biologists may react this way). Yet, I have seen such approaches numerous times when the bear was merely self confident and not interested in the people or more concerned with their protests than with those of sea gulls or ravens as the bruin walked too close to a salmon carcass where the birds were feasting. Given that even experienced biologists can misread (i.e., project) aggression into benign encounters, it’s no wonder that this bias also taints encounter testimony by lay people – the very testimony being analyzed by researchers to better understand bearÞhuman aggression. The encounters classified as “aggressive” include not only cases where a person was injured, but also instances where the person just perceived himself or herself to be at high risk of injury, perhaps simply because a bear was “bold” or approached closely. Such results could be highly misleading unless researchers develop criteria for quantifying actual risk and for weeding out “victim” misinterpretations. Progress toward that goal is summarized in BVA’s forthcoming book Bear Aggression. Figure 1.2. Motives for aggression. . Accurately assessing risk also requires distinguishing motivation. The three major motives for aggression against people or fellow bears are predation, competition for social rank or resources (e.g., food, space, a mate), and protection of oneself or one’s companions (e.g., offspring or siblings). Predation is inherently offensive; protection against an enemy is inherently defensive. Competition involves both offense and defense. An individual that threatens or assaults another individual to usurp its resource or rank is acting offensively; one might say it’s being a bully. Reciprocally, a victim that tries to prevent its rank or a resource from being usurped – which guards its status or resource – is acting defensively. Offense can be either predatory or competitive; defense can be either competitive or protective or sometimes both simultaneously. Failure to distinguish motivation not only confuses analysis. It has led many people to kill bears that were merely trying to deter the people from hurting or crowding them. A bear that woofs, huffs and clacks its teeth, perhaps followed by a short rush toward an intruder, may be doing roughly the same thing as a dog that barks and runs towards someone approaching its puppies. In reality, bears rarely want trouble. Human injury or death is no more likely to result from close encounters with an acclimated bear – one that both trusts and respects people – than from flying in an airplane or riding in a car, to say nothing of doing many sports whose hazards people accept willingly. In Alaska over the past few decades, at least 6 people were killed riding in a small aircraft on their way to view bears, whereas the only viewers even seriously injured by bears were Tim Treadwell and his lady who ignored virtually all precautions. If the only thing you knew about “driving” an aircraft or auto, or about kayaking, skiing or skydiving, came from analysis of crashes, you’d probably prefer to walk. And you’d never learn how to perform well. The same distortions and limitations come from focusing too tightly on the tiny fraction of bear encounters where someone was injured by the bruin. RELATIVE INJURY RATES: BEARS vs. OTHER HAZARDS In an effort to counteract bearanoia, various writers have tried to put injury rates into statistical perspective. For example, Steve Herrero – the pioneer of attack analysis — and his colleagues note that on average over the past century, this continent’s million bears have killed only about 3 people per year.1.12 This is much lower than the number of fatal injuries from many common hazards. Herrero noted that, within the USA during just 1976 and 1977, 2 people were killed by grizzlies, whereas 197 people were killed by lightening and 108 by the bites or stings of venomous animals. 1.13 Similarly, a recent book by Howard Smith cited Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game reports that in Alaska, 19 people were killed by dogs during 1975-85, whereas only 20 people were killed by bears from 1900-85. [The 1.9 fatal attacks per year by dogs was almost 8-fold the rate by bears.] Smith concludes that “These statistics seem to confirm the relatively low probability of death from bear attacks.”1.14 INJURY RATES vs. RISKS These differences in injury rates are impressive at first glance. But a closer look shows they could be misleading. Relative rate is not the same thing as relative risk (probability). Your risk of being seriously injured by a hazard depends on both your likelihood of encountering the hazard, and on the probability that the encounter will lead to injury.1.15 For the average person, during an average hour on an average day, the likelihood of encountering a dog is millions of times greater than the likelihood of encountering a bear. Then, if an encounter occurs, the aver- average bear is thousands of times more likely than the average dog to injure you. Of course, simple averages like that can also be misleading. ¨ Risk of serious dog injury is so tiny that a ~1000-fold higher risk by bears is still very low. The average person’s risk of being injured by the average bear is 1 in millions. 1.15 ¨ Some dogs are far more likely to injure you than are some bears. ¨ The likelihood of a dog seriously injuring someone depends on the dog’s size relative to the person’s size, the dog’s breed, its temperament, its training, and the situation. For example: · Toy poodles might nip a person, but they couldn’t kill anyone except a small child, in the rare event such a tiny dog tried. · Pit bulls and some other breeds are large enough and aggressive enough to have maimed or killed even adults. 1.16 ¨ The likelihood of a bear doing that much damage also depends on its relative size, species, temperament and situation. · Black bears tend to be much smaller than grizzly/brown bears, which tend to be smaller than polar bears. All else being equal, blackies would tend to inflict less injury on people of any given body size, would be more likely to target small children than adolescents or adults (attacks are rare but usually predatory). · Whether grizzlies/brownies are worse bullies than either of the other bear species isn’t certain. But grizzlies/brownies are definitely the most violently protective species; and protectiveness by grizzlies/brownies is the primary cause of serious or fatal injury to people in North America. 1.12 · Indeed, within Western Canada and Alaska, the average grizzly/ brownie is at least 100-fold more likely than the average blackie to seriously/fatally maul someone.1.15 · Brown bears are less likely than grizzlies to inflict serious injury.1.17 In fact, risk with a brownie is midway between risk with a blackie vs. a grizzly. Danger from polar bears has not been reliably quantified, but I suspect they are at least as predatory and bullying as grizzlies, but much less protective. · Most defensive attacks by grizzly/brown bears are inflicted by mothers with cubs, especially if surprised at close range. The next-most common cause of defensive attack is crowding a grizzly that is defending a large animal carcass. OVER-GENERALIZATION Those findings clearly contradict the common belief that you can expect high risk of injury by any bear. In truth, risk varies dramatically according to a bear’s species, gender, maturity (cub, subadult, or adult) and reproductive status. Risk can also increase if the bear is famished, if it perceives people as competitors for food, or if it feels crowded. Yet even typical correlations between those factors and risk can be over-generalized. Averages trends can conceal contradictory cases. This is an unavoidable consequence of data scarcity. Fortunately, fewer than 350 people over the past century have been fatally injured by North America’s million bears. Yet, from a scientific standpoint, that is too small a sample size for deriving more than gross generalizations. To make finer distinctions, we must turn to other methods that yield larger samples. And we must consider a broader spectrum of encounters. Attacks are cases where precautions were either ignored or failed. At least as much attention should be paid to cases where people successfully negotiated close encounters and to the methods they used. Additionally, deeper insight requires extending analysis: · from just bear-human conflicts to also encompass bear-bear conflicts. · from just conflicts to include other kinds of bear-human and bear-bear interactions, even peaceful socialization. · from randomly sampling generic bears to systematically observing known individuals day-after-day and year-after-year so that their personal histories, temperaments, and mood swings are documented. As expected, this broader approach reveals many exceptions to conventional taboos. It demonstrates that people can safely interact with bears in ways that seem very dangerous if not suicidal when seen from the militancy perspective. For example, consider the core belief of militancy that the only safe bears are those which fear people so much that they avoid us by a wide margin. Let’s critique this belief both logically and empirically. Logical Critique * Most serious or fatal attacks are inflicted by grizzly/brown bears. * Most of those attacks are protective, not bullying. * Protectiveness is a manifestation of fear – of distrust. * Even if intensified distrust of people makes grizzly/brown bears try to avoid us by a wider margin, when encounters do occur, it also increases our risk of serious or fatal attack. Intensifying distrust– alienating grizzly/brown bears towards people–can backfire. * The biggest problem is not bears coming to trust people, but losing respect for people, which promotes bullying. Figure 1.3 Attack risk relative to a bear’s attitude towards people. Distrust promotes defensiveness, not bullying – which is a product of disrespect. Empirical Critique Much viewing is done in situations where any bear that wanted to attack viewers could do so. It was thus widely predicted that the explosive increase in viewer numbers and the growing trust of bears for viewers would lead to a dramatic increase in maulings. Yet, at sites where viewing is common but feeding and crowding are not,1.18 few viewers have received even minor bites or swats, much less serious maulings; and the few exceptions (e.g., involving Michio Hoshino, Tim Treadwell, Amy Huguenard, and Vitaly Nikolayenko) have had little to do with viewing and nothing to do with bears trusting people.1.19 Furthermore, the rate of serious maulings by brown bears is far lower per viewer than per hunter.1.20 To an open- minded observer, this makes perfect sense, given that (a) bears are presumably most afraid of people who stalk, threaten, harass or hunt them, and that (b) most serious or fatal maulings are defensive.1.21 Whereas the safety of viewing directly contradicts the conventional wisdom of most wildlife management agencies and other bear professionals, it came as no surprise to those of us who have come to know bears intimately. ASSESSING RISK RELATIVE RISK If we could quantify risk under each set of conditions (e.g., applying or ignoring each precaution), we could measure the effect of each alternative set. That goal is illustrated by the following guestimates: Let’s assume that once the average person enters bear country, his/her daily risk of attack by the average bear is 1 in 1 million (abbreviated as 1:1 million). That same person’s attack risk might be only: ¨ 1:10,000,000 by the average black bear. ¨ 1:100,000 by the average brown bear. ¨ 1:10,000 by the average grizzly. (Risk is higher with grizzlies because they live where food supply is poorer and competition stronger; so there is less tolerance for intruders, ursine or human.)1.17 With the average brown bear, attack risk might be: ¨ 1:1,000,000 for an expert. ¨ 1:100,000 for a trained, disciplined layman. ¨ 1:1,000 for someone careless. ¨ 1:10 for someone who goes looking for trouble or who ignores warning signs and precautions — as Tim Treadwell demonstrated. Unfortunately, even this “order of magnitude” level of precision is likely years away for most risk factors and perhaps impossible for others. At present, we can not even be sure which precaution-violations are more risky than driving fast with bald tires on a wet icy road vs. which are no more dangerous than driving without a seatbelt – which some people have done for decades without injury. All we can do is recommend practices known to adequately reduce risk without being able to measure the amount of reduction. ATTACKS AND CHARGES Despite limitations on our ability to quantify risk, there is much we can do to avoid exaggerating risk. One key is distinguishing the spectra of assault intensities and ursine motives for running toward people.1.3 Assault reports rarely provide enough detail to assess the bear’s intent. But severity of injury and parts of the victim’s body injured can provide clues. The mere fact that most victims survive bear assault indicates that disciplinary actions are much more common than attempts to kill the victim. Indeed, many maulings are no more damaging than typical dog bites. At the mildest end of the scale are mere nips or swats that don’t break or bruise a person’s skin. When someone classifies even such minor assaults as “attacks,” this can enormously inflate the total count of “attacks,” which the average person misinterprets to mean serious or fatal injuries. In turn, this dramatically exaggerates perceived risk. Risk is also exaggerated if you use the term “charge” any time a bear runs towards a person, without considering whether the motive is assault, intimidation, fleeing from danger, seeking refuge behind the person, or inviting the person to play. Failure to make these distinctions not only inflates aggression statistics. It also leads people to shoot bears even in situations where a more astute person could have minimized risk through diplomacy – applying the very skills taught in this book. CRYING WOLF A third way of exaggerating risk is confusing possibilities with probabilities. The more awful the potential consequences of a hazard, the more typical warnings imply that worst-case consequences are not merely possible, but likely. Warnings gain little credence if we add that “It’s only a matter of time” — meaning that punishment is certain, even if it’s timing isn’t – as in Treadwell’s case. This confusion isn’t specific to bears; it can happen with any hazard. Consider usual warnings in a driver safety class: e.g., Wear your seatbelt. Don’t drink and drive. Make sure your tires have plenty of tread and your brake pads are in top condition. Look at all the victims in these photos; what happened to them could happen to you. Granted, emphasizing worst-case scenarios helps convince people to listen carefully and to apply precautions rigorously — at least in the short term. In the long term however, safety advice can lose its credibility if warnings are contradicted by peoples’ firsthand experience. If they repeatedly observe someone ignoring precautions without triggering adverse consequences, they become highly skeptical. The longer that transgressors escape “punishment,” the more confidently they and their imitators dismiss the precautions as useless and the alleged dangers as mere superstitions. Premature skepticism is especially common among youth who haven’t lived long enough to see anyone fall victim to improbable hazards or from long-term cumulative risk. SMALL RISK OR SUPERSTITION? Before you jump onto the Treadwell-was-nuts bandwagon, walk in his shoes for a few minutes: His in-depth exposure to bears began in the late 1980’ s when he arrived in Alaska and set up camp in Katmai National Park. The Park lies at the head of the Alaska Peninsula, roughly 25 miles west of Kodiak Island. This area hosts one of the world’s densest brown/grizzly bear populations. During his first season or few, Tim carried pepper spray and used it on at least one bear. However, he eventually found ways of keeping even bully bears in check through intimidation. No spray needed. He surrounded his camp with an electric fence until he accidentally touched a hot wire. The resulting shock was so unpleasant that he vowed to never use it on bears. No pepper spray, no fence. Day after day and night after night for 13 summers, he ignored most precautions with impunity. Yet, contrary to predictions, he didn’t quickly fall victim. He survived unscathed and with growing scorn for most conventional taboos. He chided anyone – including me – who didn’t agree that most taboos are just superstitions. Paraphrasing our last conversation: “Hey, Two Guns,” he greeted me during August 2003, “still carrying a double load of pepper spray, I see.”* Yes, I did have two cans (not guns). If one can failed or ran dry, I had a backup. If faced by more than one aggressive bear, I could fire in two directions simultaneously. Tim couldn’t tolerate even the thought of spraying bears. “I’d never hurt my friends,” he stated emphatically. “Think how bears discipline one another,” I reminded him. “With bites and swats that do a lot more damage and hurt a lot longer than pepper spray.” Rather than argue, Tim switched topics. “Still using an electric fence around your camp? “Yes,” I confirmed. “Why? Afraid a bear’s going to come at night and eat you?” Duh. Suppose that you – like Tim — had camped for even 100 nights without an electric fence, at sites regularly visited by dozens of bears. Would you too begin suspecting that a fence wasn’t necessary — an opinion that I’ve heard from numerous veteran outdoorsmen in Alaska? Camp that way for years as Tim did, and you also might become convinced that a fence is useless – until some night when an ursine visitor turns homicidal. Tim’s dismissal of precautions was “right” for roughly 1000 days and nights; but on a proverbial “1001st” night, he was wrong – dead wrong. After 13 summers he finally met a bear that lived up to horror stories. When that happened, his lack of preparation, and probably excessive reliance on bullying tactics, proved fatal. He and Amie were killed and eaten. Tim didn’t die because he was crazy, but because he didn’t take into account the cumulative effect of ignoring too many precautions for too many years. How can we avoid making the same mistake without falling prey to superstition? How can we determine which taboos are valid at least some of the time? And how do we distinguish the situations where a taboo is valid from those where it is not? How can we cull out any useless precautions that persist only because few people and fewer government agencies dare violate them or condone anyone else doing so? For example, how might we test the taboo against running from a bear? Researchers have analyzed records of aggressive encounters and compared the fates of people who stood their ground versus those who ran. Runners suffered a higher injury rate.1.22 But what does this statistic tell us? Does it prove that running increases risk of mauling? Or does it prove that people most likely to be mauled recognize their greater danger and are thus the most likely to panic and run? Correlation doesn’t prove causation. But experimentation or detailed observation might. Experimentation Sometimes, the best way test a taboo is violating it. However, as Treadwell’s case illustrates so vividly, this approach can be extremely risky.* It should only be done cautiously, step by step, recognizing that a great many “unpunished” trials might be necessary before a taboo is conclusively contradicted. And any contradiction might apply only under conditions whose limits aren’t yet known. * Underlying all of Tim’s other errors was lack of discipline – one of the most essential features of testing any taboo or extending any other boundary of human achievement. It is sometimes amazing what people can accomplish if they are highly disciplined and well prepared, as one sees in extreme sports such as skiing ultra-steep mountain slopes, surfing giant waves, or kayaking wild rivers. But no amount of skill, preparation, and daring is guarantee against bad luck. That’s why pros minimize vulnerability. When skiing where avalanche is even moderately likely, pros carry a locater transmitter and other gear to increase odds of survival. When kayaking class 5 rapids, pros may wear an air tank and a helmet. Yet, even that may not suffice. I once watched a kayaking contest where the commentator noted that none of the champions from several years earlier were still competing. Most had either been killed or retired after close calls. At sites like those on the Katmai coast, typical bear encounters are far less dangerous than extreme sports. Yet, even unlikely consequences become increasingly probable the longer you keep playing the odds. (Similarly, the likelihood of any given person winning a big lottery may be vanishingly small; but eventually there is always a winner.) Risk of a serious bear mauling may be extremely low. But sooner or later, there is always a victim, somewhere in North America. If not this month or year, then the next, or the one after that. The more encounters you have with bears, all else being equal, the higher your cumulative risk of becoming a victim. (Odds of say 1,000 to 1 against a mauling would sound a lot more comforting on your 1st encounter than on your 10,000th.) To limit cumulative risk, minimize risk per day by becoming ever more savvy about bears. If someone had invented feather-light bear-proof armor,1.23 we might hire people to run from bears repeatedly. We might document how frequently the bruin attacked and the context under which attack occurred. Without such armor, however, even penniless grad students aren’t desperate enough to volunteer; and Al Queda don’t want to pass through a bear’s belly on their way to Allah. So any human experiments that occur usually do so by accident, as in my own case. As a general rule, people are the only creatures that don’t run when a bear signals “scram;” and we also suffer the highest risk of being mauled. Is that mere coincidence? Granted, we run a lot slower than wolves or bears, which makes us more vulnerable. But I person- ally try to do what a bear demands, while prepared to switch tactics at an instant’s notice, if necessary. I never retreat from an adolescent. But I have retreated at a fast walk from protective mothers, which has always mollified them. I have also immediately fled upon discovering that I’d stumbled on an animal carcass claimed by a bruin. No bruin has ever pursued, much less assaulted me. Although some people run because they panic, I personally find it far easier to be brave while standing still or walking away than while racing away, which itself escalates my fear. Observation of Spontaneous Events My belief that running is occasionally right came from watching wildlife. I’ve seen both brown and black bears defend large animal carcasses. I’ve also watched mothers of each species defending cubs. When either species used threats to demand that an intruder “scram!” fellow bears, wolves, and other creatures typically complied, often at a run. So long as the intruder ran and kept running for at least 50-100 yards, the defending bear seldom tried to catch it. And when the escapee was closely pursued, it was likely to suddenly stop and whirl to face its pursuer, whereupon that bear also stopped and the two bruins threatened one another but seldom fought. This makes sense. While a defending bear pursues one intruder, it can’t keep other intruders away from its prized food or its cubs. A sow rarely chased an intruder very far if her own cubs failed to keep up. Even sows with fast cubs seldom gave chase except during the breeding season when even juveniles seemed to pursue anything not much larger than themselves that was running past or away from them. These chases were bullying, not predatory. Whether our concern is the taboo against running from bears or some other precaution, testing validity would be simplest if even one violation triggered punishment, or where even one lack of punishment proved there was no danger. It’s far harder to test precautions where the outcome is a matter of small chance. Taking a hypothetical example, suppose we had reason to predict that brown bears acclimated to viewers would attack a fleeing intruder only once in 100 times, on average. How many cases – e.g., 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 – of someone running without being attacked would be necessary to prove that lack of attack was not due to chance but to running actually not being dangerous in that situation? Fear or difficulty of testing taboos is what allows erroneous beliefs to persist and become superstitions. If violating a taboo would allegedly traumatize not only the violator, but other people, those people might forbid anyone to test the taboo’s validity. Thus are superstitions institutionalized and perpetuated. Arguably, this has happened with some bear safety measures, such as the precautions to never run from a bear, feed it, crowd it, or befriend it – to never let a bear lose its “natural fear” of people. The problem is not that these taboos are universally wrong, but that they are not universally right. Again, valuable though it is to study injurious encounters – cases where precautions were ignored or failed – deeper wisdom requires paying as much attention to successes, both ursine successes and human successes. Bears have spent millions of years evolving ways to settle conflicts non-violently – i.e., diplomatically. Mimicking their methods can be equally helpful to people who want to experience encounters at low risk. Following chapters explain how. NEUTRAL vs. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS Viewing, like coexistence in general, can be done in various degrees of interaction, ranging from neutral (aloof) to social: Neutral: Bear is aware of the people but ignores them and is minimally affected by them – the optimum viewing situation. 1st degree: Bear responds to the people by interrupting its normal activities to watch them. 2nd degree: Bear actively avoids people or approaches curiously. 3rd degree: Bear flees, threatens or assaults people. 4th degree: Bear socializes with people. If your relationship with a bear begins at the 1st – 3rd degree, proper reactions by you might neutralize its fear, anger or curiosity so that the bear loses interest and thereafter largely ignores you. All else being equal, the more you are ignored, the lower your risk of being bullied by a bear or of disrupting the bruin’s wariness, foraging, courting, mating, caring for cubs, or other essential activities. The more viewing to which a bear is exposed, the more strictly we should limit impact per person per hour in order to keep cumulative impact within tolerable limits. Chapters 2-10 explain how to do this under common viewing conditions. A bear whisperer is anyone who has mastered the knowledge and skills of neutralizing-diplomacy necessary to handle any level of interaction up to 3rd degree and to thereby minimize further interaction. A different order of diplomatic expertise is needed to safely socialize with bears. This is akin to the charisma that allows some politicians to win the trust, respect, and cooperation of other people. Some communicators possess comparable skills with animals (Chapters 11). We socialize to look across the gulf between species, trying to glimpse “minds within the skins of other kinds.” (Chapter 12) Each of my books gives you another window into what I have glimpsed. Beauty Within the Beast tells of my experiences with blackies. Books on my adventures and discoveries with grizzly/brown bears, wolves, moose and elk will follow as soon as my series of safety manuals is done. If I have blazed any trails, I must also warn of challenges facing anyone inspired to follow those trails. Figure 1.4. Filming: Above at Geographic Harbor: Filming with a Canon XL1 camcorder – a revolutionary tool in its day (Judy McClure photo). Below at Hallo Bay: Lunch break while hoping that the rain will stop and sunlight return before the rising tide drives me back ashore (Buck Wilde photo). Filming bears is the best way to document body language, aggression, and many other kinds of behavior. (Then come countless hours in the lab, analyzing film footage frame by frame, doing statistical analyses, computer modeling and mathematical calculations.) Never let your focus on photography distract you from staying safe. For further information, click on "Bear Whispering"* |
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