I have never been to Africa, but have been through a lot of authors on the subject and talked to a few folks who have been there. Seems like hippo, rhino, buffalo, elephant and lepard won't take too much dislike to you unless you stick them with something else first or get in the way of some direction they REALLY want to go in. Only lions seem to ocassionally take to unprovoked biting and eating.

Have been bluff charged by a black bear while moose hunting because I walked in on a dead moose it had been feeding on that I didn't know was there until the bear started to come. Didn't have a bear tag and it stopped about 20-25 feet away and made it's displeasure known. I was carrying my .375H&H at the time(yeah, maybe a little overgunned for moose, but if you ever had one run off into the REAL deep, you understand why you want to be able to STOP IT from doing that) and felt pretty sure I could disuade it from biting if it decided to complete the trip.

Have killed a few black bears and unless stepped on like I did, they also seem harmless...98% of the time. ALSO one thing most folks will agree on is that IF a black bear does attack you in earnest, it is more likely to kill you then a bronwie or grizz.

BUT, what about brown bears and polar bears?
Have known several folks who have been atttacked and managed to survive, and they never really knew WHY they were attacked. There were no indications they had done anything other then be in the bear's house.

SO, other then man, what really is the most dangerous game animal you have either encountered or formulated an opinion on? Any stories or anecdotes re- the subject?

just some saturday afternoon musings.

I've got lots of bear stories. Sadly no African ones...Although that could be a good thing in a way.

Statisticly, Black bears are far more dangerous to humans than grizzlies.

There are a few reasons, but the fact that there are so many blacks has something to do with it. BC has an estimated 300 000 black bears and about 25 000 grizzlies.

When you walked up on that moose carcass the black bear was defending, you were a lucky fellow. Had that been a grizzly, you may not have survived unless you started shooting quickly and accurately.

Grizzlies attack for a few reasons, but carcass defense is definitely one of them. Their instincts tell them to aggresively defend their food.

A momma grizz and cubs is also dangerous of course, and so is just "surprising" one at the wrong time. Some bears are just mean.

Black bears are not so aggresive when defending cubs. I'm not going to say that youshould go and pick a cub up, or get close to it, though. I've ssen plenty of female black bears get scared and be fr more concerned for their own skin than their cubs.

Black bears wil stalk and kill humans for food, however. And it's not all that uncommon. I've been stalked by a black bear and so have a number of people I know.

If a bear starts chewing on you when you are asleep, you better react quickly. He wants you for a midnight snack.

Polar bears I have no real experience with, other than looking at them. But it's safe to say that a polar bear doesn't think of you as anything else than a tasty morsel. They've eaten alot of humans, and they are very aggressive.

One Alaskan I know says "with a Grizz, at least you know where you stand, one wrong move and they will kill you out of pure meanness, but you never know what to expect from a Black bear. Sometimes they see people as lunch and other times they dont want nothing to do with you."

tag or not a bear at 25 feet is a dead bear.

A cow moose with a calf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has to be my wife during a certain time of the month- no not THAT time, the time of the month when the Visa bill comes and she finds out what I've been spending on that month. (although it does occur at the OTHER time of the month from time to time- then she is REALLY dangerous!) - Sheister

I have read some where that a Polar bear is the only animal in the world that once he catches wind of you will immediately start hunting you.Like GateHouse said to a Polar you are just an easy meal.

Hello;
Elim's note reminds me of an incident that happenen in the Canadian Arctic on a drilling rig, a few years ago. Naturally, it was in the dark of winter. A polar bear came right into the camp, grabbed one of the workers, and proceeded to eat him in front of his buddies. Since the government, in its infinite wisdom, had decided not to allow guns in such camps, all they could do was watch. After that they hired an Eskimo [sorry, Inuit] to stand guard. One of my friends has a sign on a door in his rec room from an Arctic drilling camp. It says, WARNING, on the other side of this door could be a polar bear!
Griz

I don't know how to paste the picture. You'll just have to follow the link if you want to see this critter. He's hideous. I wouldn't want a pack of these after me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aprile Pazzo was about to call it a day when she noticed that the penguins she was observing seemed strangely agitated. Pazzo, a wildlife biologist, was in Antarctica studying penguins at a remote, poorly explored area along the coast of the Ross Sea. "I was getting ready to release a penguin I had tagged when I heard a lot of squawking," says Pazzo. "When I looked up, the whole flock had sort of stampeded. They were waddling away faster than I'd ever seen them move."

Pazzo waded through the panicked birds to find out what was wrong. She found one penguin that hadn't fled. "It was sinking into the ice as if into quicksand," she says. Somehow the ice beneath the bird had melted; the penguin was waist deep in slush. Pazzo tried to help the struggling penguin. She grabbed its wings and pulled. With a heave she freed the bird. But the penguin wasn't the only thing she hauled from the slush. About a dozen small, hairless pink molelike creatures had clamped their jaws onto the penguin's lower body. Pazzo managed to capture one of the creatures -- the others quickly released their grip and vanished into the slush.

Over the next few months Pazzo caught several of the animals and watched others in the wild. She calls the strange new species hotheaded naked ice borers. "They're repulsive," says Pazzo. Adults are about six inches long, weigh a few ounces, have a very high metabolic rate -- their body temperature is 110 degrees -- and live in labyrinthine tunnels carved in the ice.

Perhaps their most fascinating feature is a bony plate on their forehead. Innumerable blood vessels line the skin covering the plate. The animals radiate tremendous amounts of body heat through their "hot plates," which they use to melt their tunnels in ice and to hunt their favorite prey: penguins.

A pack of ice borers will cluster under a penguin and melt the ice and snow it's standing on. When the hapless bird sinks into the slush, the ice borers attack, dispatching it with bites of their sharp incisors. They then carve it up and carry its flesh back to their burrows, leaving behind only webbed feet, a beak, and some feathers. "They travel through the ice at surprisingly high speeds, " says Pazzo, "much faster than a penguin can waddle."

Pazzo's discovery may also help solve a long-standing Antarctic mystery: What happened to the heroic polar explorer Philippe Poisson, who disappeared in Antarctica without a trace in 1837? "I wouldn't rule out the possibility that a big pack of ice borers got him," says Pazzo. "I've seen what these things do to emperor penguins -- it isn't pretty -- and emperors can be as much as four feet tall. Poisson was about 5 foot 6. To the ice borers, he would have looked like a big penguin."

-- Discover Magazine , April 1995

http://nac.tamu.edu/x075bb/discover/fool95.html

2 quick thoughts,
Gatehouse,How does Gates Creek look for Blackies this year.
Randy,Behave yourself,don't tease the animals.soth derF

I have only seen one bear this year, and there is very little sign so far.

There isn't much food for them as of yet, which is surprising because of the warm winter we had.

I say give it a couple of weeks...

While hunting in Ocala National Forest back in about 1984-85 with about 30 hunters in the Hopkins Prairie Hunt Camp we had all just finished polishing off a small spike buck and drifted off to our respective tents and camper trailers for the night when there was a muffled shot and a horrible thumping and screaming.

I grabbed my Model 600 in 350 Rem Mag and ran from my trailer toward the sounds. I then heard another shot and two elderly gentlemen yelling at each other at the top of their voices.

It became hilarious because it appeared that each was carrying on a totaly separate yelled conversation while hopping around with their eyes about to pop out of their heads and all they wore was their long handles.

It appeared that neither could hear us at all even when we yelled so we gently pried the shotguns from their hands and handed one of them a pad of paper and a pen.

He scratched one word on the pad.... BEAR.

I pointed at my eyes and shrugged my shoulders.

He led us to the side of their camper trailer and the rest of the story became obvious.

A large (for Florida) sow with 2 cubs had come on their trailer and smelled bacon grease in their frying pan right next to their open kitchen window. She had placed her front paws on the side of the trailer leaving huge paw prints and pushed the screen in with her nose and was lapping the grease out of the pan.

One of the old gents woke up to the trailer shaking and saw the bear when he flicked on the flashlight. He assumed it was trying to break in to get him so he grabbed a shotgun and shot. The bear ducked out and ran and he blew out most of the window deafening himself and his brother.

They ran out of the trailer and snapped a shot at the sow as she ran away.

One of the campers with us was a prison guard and seemed pretty fearless so I asked him to track the bear for awhile with me to see if she was wounded. If so we thought we should report the incident.

We couldn't find any blood and her tracks with her cubs ran straight away from the campsite.

The next morning the same prison guard and I tracked her for a couple or three miles on foot until she went in a small cypress swamp.

He was all for going in after her but since we weren't allowed to shoot the bear I suggested that, discretion, being the best part of valor, we should give it up.

At that exact moment the sow charged us huffing and puffing and popping her jaws.

The "mighty" 350 Rem Mag felt like a toothpick in my hands and I was pretty damned rattled. I shouldered it and centered her and started to squeeze off a shot when she stopped abruptly and stood popping her jaws.

It seemed like she was right in my face but I guess it was probably about 30 feet away.

I was scared shitless but was even more afraid of telling my story to a judge how I tracked the bear up for several miles and THEN killed her in self defense... Yeah Right....

End of Story. The bear returned to the swamp and we slinked back to camp like two whipped dogs and I can still hear her growls and jaws popping when I close my eyes.

My vote is for the black bear... I have an even better story after this one....

$bob$

HenryC470, tried that link on those ice-borers things, couldn't get through; are you sure that's the link, I'd like to see what these things look like.
Craig

The Ice Borer article is a clever hoax, but the letters it engendered from readers are a riot. If you can get the link to work, it is a riot to read the letters to the editor section.- Sheister

I know this sounds crazy, but there was an article in Outdoor life about 8 or 9 years ago which I put up somewhere. It concerned attacks by the most dangerous game animal in North America. It had accounted for more attacks and more human kills than any other, and by a huge margin. It wasn't even close. The numbers dwarfed the next most dangerous. Most deaths were unprovoked attacks of unarmed non-hunters, mostly farmers. This fearsome beast was none other than the whitetail deer.

Animal attacks make for good stories, but we all probably have a much better chance of seeing Elvis than we do of getting attacked by some wild beast on an annual hunting trip.

The real dangers are things like; hypothermia, falls, horseback accidents, firearms accidents, etc.

Steiny,
You forgot to mention having to eat our own cooking.

Lawcop
Not far away from were I hunt elk and mtn goats two very experienced hunters were killed by a sow grizzly while dressing an elk. I spoke with the local conservation officer (license and tags please) and asked how this could happen to not one but two hunters? His answere? "QUICKLY"!!
One of the hunters appeared to be watching over the other during field dressing. She must have snuck up on them then attacked. The officer knew it was quick because the hunter's rifles were still loaded. The sow responsable for the attack wieghed in at about 200 pounds.
I don't think any black bear could do this.
The official story can be read in "Bear Attacks the Deadly Truth" by James Gary Shelton.

If you come here to hunt, bring your .375

last year i went deer hunt,it was beginning of november,third day of hunt i runn to black bear,he was looking at me with no sign of fear or neither sign of attack,i had my drilling gun at the time,as soonest i moved he start walking towards me,i willl never forget those 10 seconds,i shoot him with 303 british,than used my right barell which held a brennek slug,than i reload quickly and more from fear sed rifle barell again ,in this situation even 375 hollnad holland seems like 22lr trust me,it was black bear 380 pounds

While even whitetail deer have been known to kill people, I think that elephants [especially cow elephants] are more likely to charge, and actually do a person harm, more so than any other animal.

I guess -to answer LawCop's question (in my own way) - the most dangerous animal is the one that,at the moment, is confronted -on his turf -close up -and who evidences every intention of showing you who is the boss in "these parts". For me, it was a Cape buff at something between 30-35 yards distance and turning to attend to me. (A 375 H&H 300 gr. solid hitting him on the point of the shoulder really discouraged him from whatever his intentions were) I hunted black bear in the Nipissing District of Ontario for years and emphatically agree with his assessment that a black bent on an attack will kill faster than a grizzly. (None of this business about lying still and protecting the back of your neck will help)The big thing, always, was -don't surprise a black. I never hunted from a tree stand and was warned by the locals, (since I sat with my back against a tree trunk) make sure you are not completely hidden by the tree trunk from a black coming up from behind. (A lot of bait hunters assumed that the black always would approach from in front) I had a deep respect for black bears -and always made sure to be carrying something that would plant a black on the spot (hopefully) I always carried several 12 ga. rifled slugs in my pocket when hunting ruffed grouse in Ontario in early October (after bear season was closed and the bears were looking for dens) Prohibited by game laws but the locals advised me to carry a few and it always made me feel better! So, I thought at that time and place that the black bear was the "most dangerous".

quote:

Originally posted by Charles_Helm:

Yes, I concur, lickilovac the great necroposter strikes again!!

human beings have ALWAYS been on the menu for Polar Bears. That said, IMHO Cape Buffalo get more PH's/Clients every year than anything else.

Rich

My vote in priority of danger:
1. Cow elephant (just minding her own business)
2. Bull hippo (alone on dry ground)
3. Cape buffalo bull (wounded)
4. Grizzly, either sex (just doing what grizzly do)