Thhe book in question was written by Gary Shelton, one of the genuine bear experts in B.C. Gary teaches bear safety courses to a wide variety of people, including to members of my former employers, the B.C. Forest Service. His courses and books are well worth while and I highly reccomend them.



I used to teach similar material to treeplanters, etc. and there are, as I mentioned, quite a number of people in B.C.-AB. who really know a lot about bears. The two people who impress me the most are Wayne McCrory and Charley Russell, both of these gents are about 60, have spent their entire lives around bears and know whereof they speak.They are both opposed to hunting bears, especially Grizzlies, but, while I would question this attitude; I realize that they know a hell of a lot more about bears than I do and I have had more experience with them than most.



The real defense mechanism where bears are concerned is your brain, IMO, I backpack in Grizzly areas during the summer without packing a gun which is just an awkward burden when attempting to traverse a sloping talus slide or toe of a glacier. I carefully watch where I am going and keep my campsite clean, to date, I have never had a problem....but, I probably don't taste as good as Gatehouse!

May it was mentioned and I missed It A great book on bears and bear attacks written by a guy out of BC is called Bear Attacks the Untold Truth. Can not recall the writers name.

With shot guns and bird shot you have to have the nerves to let them get very close before you shoot them A oz of shot at 10 feet or so well do the job.

In bear attacks the writter talks about blk bears sizeing up their prey sounds a lot like what this one was doing.
Going back and killing it with the rifle would have made the world a safer place.

You guys are out of touch with reality. According to Bear Watch and the BC Govt. there are not enought Grizzlys in BC to maintain a viable population. Also it just happens that I have been authorized to sell the Lions GaTe Bridge, anyone interested?? derf

The attack on Dave Wiens did not actually produce any injuries, it was a threatening charge as most of them are. It happened about 4 yrs. ago, on his ranch, if I remember correctly. Chris Widrig was certainly unlucky, but, I used these incidents to illustrate my point that even very experienced outdoors persons with a great deal of bear "smarts" can be and are attacked.

I am or was acquainted with Steven Herrero and with Wayne McCrory, whom I consider to be the foremost bear biologist now working; he is, as I am, a member of a pioneer Kootenay family and was raised, as I was, by old time trappers, prospectors and hunters in a time when most of B.C. was still wilderness. I have enormous respect for both of these men, especially Wayne, because he has gone into the bush, alone, for weeks on end to study bears and since I have spent a great deal of my life alone in deep wilderness, I know how tough this can be.

The best info. I can find on bears indicates that we really know very little about their behaviour and most of the commonly expressed opinions are not necessarily true, even the most senior biolgists and guides admit this. Many of those who profess to be bear experts are actually guys who spend their bush time on quads or in 4x4s and only encounter bears by chance. These types frequently boast about the number of bears they have shot or guided hunters to and are often very offensive in their comments to others concerning bears; the old logger's comment about "more wood has been cut in the bar, than in the bush", comes to mind.

I think that we, as hunters and bushwhackers, should really put pressure on various governments to do more studies on bear behaviour and to then publish the findings widely. I would also like to see a "bear aware" program in schools, so that kids will learn to deal with bears in a mutually beneficial fashion. The real problem is one of ignorance and a lack of sound, practical, scientific management and no government we have yet had has addressed this problem.

Between the ages of 18 to 48, I spent from 20% to an honest 65% of every year in the bush, frequently alone and in the most isolated parts of B.C. and AB. I found that certain behaviour patterns would keep bears away from me and have followed those techniques until today. I think that the gentleman at McBride was attacked because he was quietly creeping through the bush, i.e., he was "prey". The frequent attacks on hunters just as they start to gut an animal are, IMO, not precipitated by the sound of a shot as some hunters think, it is the scent of the entrails on the wind that tells the bear that grub is at hand. Grizzlies compete with each other for food, so, bumping off a human hunter is no big deal! I also think that the attacks on treeplanters are due to a "prey" recognition by the bear and these happen in the spring and fall, the times when they are hungriest.

Now. the incident with Gatehouse was a bit different, Clarke is an executive chef and samples his culinary masterpieces regularly, thus he probably exudes an aroma of fine food and would taste good to a bear. Then, he has a beautiful girlfriend, so, it is obvious to me that the bear was just checking him out to see if he could (1.) steal Clarke's lady and (2.) dine on Clarke's wellfed carcass! Seems reasonable to me!