The Bear Whisperer

[Shardik]

Man talks his way out of bear attack
Wonder what he said ....
Swedish anyone ?

Dave

 

[the_swede]

He said "ta det lugnt, nu" which means "take it easy, now". Heh...

 

[Shardik]

He said "ta det lugnt, nu" which means "take it easy, now". Heh...

That was quick.Thanks.
This guy is too !
I just can't see myself saying this...but from the look of him, this may have happened before.

 

[Papa Bear]

One thing I noticed which I believe is very important is that the guy always kept facing the animal, (but he always had the tree nearby). I think a big mistake would have been to turn his back on the animal, and worse, to run.

He basically stood his ground and out-faced the critter.

Question: why didn't the bear go after the cameraman? Or was the subject trying to stay between the bear and the camera - perhaps his wife?

 

[sardog1]

This Swede agrees with "The Swede" on the translation. (Hej!) The berrypicker's tone and words are basically the speech of someone talking to a wayward dog. This is a guy who knows his bears.

Some key points here:
1. This is in fact Ursus arctos, the selfsame species known here as the grizzly bear (in AK, the brown/grizzly bear.) However, the version in Scandinavia has a rep for being the mildest of the tribe (notwithstanding some very recent maulings and a fatality in Sweden.)

2. I'd lay a dollar that there's a cub or cubs in the woods behind this bear. Its actions are those of a bear trying to push the berrypicker back and move him away. Notice how the bear comes in swinging its forepaws widely to the side -- to show its size -- and with its head up. This event is all about display. If the bear were actually intent on causing harm, it would have come in fast and low, with head down and right into the berrypicker.

3. Don't try this at home -- or in Montana or in AK or in BC. You ain't this guy, you ain't in Scandinavia, and you don't know the secret words.

 

[Stan]

The late Bill Silliker, a prominent wildlife photographer, especially of moose and formerly all the photos in the Baxter Park calendar, told me this story.

He had waded to some rocks in a pond to take some photographs when he was cut off from the shore by an aggressive bull moose ... in rut. As a last resort he calmly complimented the bull's cow and how lovely she was but she was all his (the bull) and that he had no designs on her ...

It worked. The bull moose backed off and Bill made it safely to shore.

What worked was the calm. Animals sense emotions in people and fear or aggression will only invite further confrontation.

... either that or the bull thought, "This guy's so crazy he doesn't have a chance of scoring with my cow."

 

[sardog1]

What worked was the calm. Animals sense emotions in people and fear or aggression will only invite further confrontation.

It worked fabulously for my wife when she walked up unexpectedly on the Alaska version of Shardik's totemic friend (the one that has a reputation somewhat less mild than its Scandinavian brethren.) She saw a large furry head come up forty yards ahead of her on a trail unexpectedly. "Hmm, that's too big for a dog." It was in fact a two year old brown/grizzly bear. She stopped. He looked at her. She turned calmly and led her dog back down the trail in the opposite direction. Fortunately her extremely protective dog was upwind of the bear and had no sightline to the bear, so he never knew that Bruin was around.

I told her that her long experience in communicating with dogs helped enormously. She said with her body language and actions, "I'm not going to disturb you or do anything crazy. I'm just going to leave quietly, and you can go back to digging for roots." And he replied in similar fashion, "OK then, I won't do anything crazy either, and I'll just go back to digging for roots."

 

[marty]

The late Bill Silliker, a prominent wildlife photographer, especially of moose and formerly all the photos in the Baxter Park calendar, told me this story.

I did not know that Bill Silliker passed away. I have two of his books on Maine moose watching and moose habits. I used to read the latter to my daughter before bedtime. She memorized the captions under each picture. Thinking about that brought back some very fond memories of my daughter's early years.

I have also seen Bill's photos appear on various calendars and in the Maine Sportsman Magazine.

It must have been cool to have known him, Stan.

SORRY FOR GOING A BIT OFF-TOPIC!

Regards,
Marty

 

[erugs]

I'm guessing that the man and the bear were "friends" and not strangers to each other. The bear looked playful, to me. It was the music that added a sense of tension, plus not understanding the language. The man could have been saying, "Ah, let's play again, this time for the camera.Yah?"

 

[Tim Seaver]

Looks more like the Daytona 500 variation on a "bluff charge" than an "attack". Like anything to do with bear attacks, there is controversy on the subject of bluff charges, I am basing my comments on my own experience with a bear in Mount Rainier NP that charged me - he stopped when I picked up a baseball bat sized stick and wielded it in my best cave-man fashion while yelling "BACK OFF!" at the top of my lungs, but I am pretty sure that he was just trying to make me move away, as I had been running down some switchbacks when I intersected his path. Of course, this was a black bear, not a griz.

Kinda reminds me the way my Staffordshire Terrier would run around the living room when she was in "attack" mode, bouncing off the walls, door, and the back of the couch. Great display of physical agility ( and definitely worth a biscuit).