Video: why you shouldn’t use birdshot on a charging grizzly bear

I’m not sure how I feel about the shooting. I don’t live in bear country, but I guess I can understand firing birdshot in the air to run them off. The problem here is that the mother bear had cubs with her; maybe going outside and rushing the bear might ordinarily work, but not when she’s got cubs to protect. That being said, barring the decision to go outside it seems like what happened was the best outcome. The bear probably will live, and the homeowner wasn’t mauled. If the bear had kept coming birdshot might have still protected him, at close ranges when the group is super tight shot can still be devastating.

What I really have a problem with here is the cameraman. I understand the hysteria of being worried about her husband, but people who take video’s with their phone in portrait mode should be beat with a wet noodle.

My BIL shot this video back in August. They are not at all uncommon where they live. His advice is to be upwind if you pepper spray them...

Bears are territorial, especially Blacks and Grizz.

Running them off from the trash or yard was the right thing to do, or have to do it later and no so easily. Once the Bear thinks its the ''owner'' of that territory, its going to aggressively defend it, Cubs or not. Imagine having to deal with that every 3rd day or so, as she makes her rounds.

Most Bears leave when confronted, very few charge.

The guys choices werent smart, but Bears will do what Bears will do, and once its comming at you, 'making choices' weather good or bad, in or out of the house, what kind of gun, etc, are all out the window, and ts time to react instinctively.
Kind of like getting in a car wreck; when your flying off an on ramp at 65mph, weather you should have stayed home in totally irrelevent, and you best have allready buckled up......

Balls to brains ratio.... heh heh.

Holy smokes. Well that solves that. No birdshot. All you guys saying he didnt have to go out. His dog was out there. Also you dont know the whole situation or timeframes of what went on for weeks or months before. I hope he has a better slug round now.

I'd have used the pickup and its horn, before I'd go out on foot with a shotgun and 3 shells of birdshot to scare off a mother grizzly. But despite the situation he put himself in, he did well with what he had.

I bet he needed to change his underwear.

Whats wrong with a 12ga beanbag round out of a upstairs bedroom window? Definitely need to show the bear that its not their territory but there are better ways to go about it without exposing yourself to a charge.

I know I’m in the minority here but I thought that looked pretty effective! I’m really surprised how hard birdshot can hammer a bear that big and coming at you so fast.

The shot was certainly debilitating long enough for him to have chambered another round and continued shooting that bear at closer range.

Luckily he chose not to do that and used that opportunity to get back in side.

Dan

If were looking for the absolute best thing he could have done?

If its a trash Bear, it can very well defend it's food source like a dead Moose carcass.

The very ''Best'' thing to do to keep the Bear away would have been to make a ''Piss Fence" around his property, or at least his drive way, but I doubt he did. If you look up my recent post in the hunting forum "" Well Dang!"'.......I have a picture of what a ''piss fence'' does to Bears, it turns them around no matter how much meat or fish I have hanging, or Caribou , as the pictures show. Has worked for me for years and years and my wifes family for generations.

A loose dog is also better than a gun, Bears and Dogs hate each other. Taking a dog along will give you a heads up on when and where a Bear is around.

The gun is a last choice.

JohnKSa said:

2. Looks like he has kids and presumably they play in the yard sometimes. It might make sense to be very aggressive about running off any potentially dangerous animals in that kind of situation.

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If we are to accept point number 2 as valid , it would follow that to be deliberately "very aggressive" while armed with bird shot is dangerously foolish. Yeah , the guy got away with it , but I think he was plain lucky. Gutsy , but also lucky.

caribou said:

If were looking for the absolute best thing he could have done?

If its a trash Bear, it can very well defend it's food source like a dead Moose carcass.

The very ''Best'' thing to do to keep the Bear away would have been to make a ''Piss Fence" around his property, or at least his drive way, but I doubt he did. If you look up my recent post in the hunting forum "" Well Dang!"'.......I have a picture of what a ''piss fence'' does to Bears, it turns them around no matter how much meat or fish I have hanging, or Caribou , as the pictures show. Has worked for me for years and years and my wifes family for generations.

A loose dog is also better than a gun, Bears and Dogs hate each other. Taking a dog along will give you a heads up on when and where a Bear is around.

The gun is a last choice.

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I was going to throw in my 2 cents on the guy coming out of the house with a shot gun full of bird shot toward a bear with cubs, but after reading your post about not allowing them to become too territorial which makes sense I'm not You live up there in Grizzly territory so you know what you're talking about. Last week my Rotti/German Shepard woke me up raising hell in the kitchen. The garbage can had been raided, bird feeder down to the ground and big wet black bear tracks across the porch up to my kitchen sliding glass door. If not for the dog the bear may have made it inside. Not a Grizzly for sure but I don't want a 250-300lb black bear inside my house either.This makes four times this season we've had bears visiting our yard in northwest Connecticut. We're outside of town but with all the houses, bird feeders and garbage cans I think our bears are territorial to my area already. Once with the dog on the porch barking there was a bear(with a yellow tag in each ear) 40 ft away laying on the ground eating out of the bird feeder seemingly not bothered by the noise. We're not feeding the birds or bears any more.

I asked him about that and this whole line was in regard to a recurring bear that kept hitting our trash cans. We keep them up until garbage day and for a bit this particular bear knew when it was going to be set out. The warden suggested the #8 shot in the bears rump to attempt to teach the bear if I do this it is going to hurt before they had to trap and move him. I kept the slugs at the end of the line just in case. Thankfully the bear after a few can raids changed his pattern and I didn't have to test this wardens theory of bear education.

Currently though we have a big boy hanging around our area. The people who own the property next to me that they hunt on have trail cam pictures of a monster black bear who probably goes 400lbs+ easily. He hit our trash cans recently and stomped one trash can absolutely flat except for two wheels sticking out, it looks like something from a cartoon. We haven't seen him since that day, and hope he is looking elsewhere. Miles and miles down the main road we have some neighbors who are not careful with their trash and scraps and suspect he is feeding at their place.

ohihunter2014 said:

Now not being funny here but how well would this go over out of season or non legal weapon for the bear? I would think that one would be charged with poaching or whatnot if the bear wasn't attacking you or a pet.

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I wouldn't be too hard on the guy. Humans have a territorial instinct to protect their home too. No one wants an animal around that can potentially end or severely alter the lives of family or friends, kill pets or livestock and damage property. Plus if you don't scare them off they'll keep coming back which has the potential to end their life as well.

Birdshot isn't exactly what I'd choose to confront a bear with and leaving the very near confines of his house probably wasn't the safest thing he's ever done and in hindsight he probably recognizes that. I imagine in attempting to defend our homes some of the members of this board have done or would do some fairly risky things.

That's why dissecting some of these videos is somewhat educational. It tends to help separate what is beneficial in high stress situations from what usually is not. Establishes a general community standard of reasoning. Helps people learn what is legal, from what isn't and so on.

The note at the beginning of the video said the images were disturbing. They were right. It disturbs me that people are that (bleeping) stupid. (Bleeping) Moron. I really can’t stand people like these idiots.

I understand that killing or maiming another animal is unfortunate and to be avoided if at all possible, but it is frequently not possible. Bears are intelligent enough to be curious. They will check things out just because. This is especially true of juveniles who haven't learned to respect man. Older bears or those that have been injured or become sick have an air of dangerous desperation about them. They are unable to chase down faster game or compete with younger, stronger predators for food sources, and so squishy, slow, hairless humans begin to look more appealing. And all bears get desperate to put on weight in the fall. This leads to more encounters between bears and humans as bears cross fence lines and brave more urban settings in search of food. Fruit trees in the yard, dog food on the porch, the grease on your grill in the patio, the leftovers you threw in the trash can in the driveway; bears smell this from a good distance away and can't afford to say no. They have a long winter to prepare for.
Our family has killed several nuisance bears on our property over the years. As mentioned, bears can be potentially aggressive. They can be a danger to pets and children, especially. They will damage your property, including doing a number on your trees. My dad shot a bear a few years ago after he woke up to it breaking the plum tree in half. You can choose to ignore the problem or treat it with kid gloves, but it only encourages the animals. You have to nip it in the bud before it gets out of control and someone other than the bear gets hurt. If this means the bear dies, that sucks. But it is better than having a grandson or nephew dragged into the woods, or losing a pet. Bears and people don't mix. We are competitors on the food chain competing for the same resources. This leads to conflict. They look cute and cuddly, and some of them, like the black bears, get a pass by some because of this, but they are not pets or play things. They are opportunistic predators. They are explosively fast and can be unpredictable. You have to treat them with respect. This means having something considerably more powerful than birdshot available in case you have to lay the smack down.

Again, nobody likes having to do it. Those of us who live in rural areas usually do so because we enjoy nature. But we also learn through constant interaction with her that Mother Nature is at times harsh, even cruel. Living in nature demands you be tough enough to make the difficult decisions necessary to ensure the safety and survival of you and yours. When fences and peeing and spot lights and loud noises fail, there's the 12 gauge slug or a 180 gr JSP from a .30-6.

The woman doing the recording should be arrested for “felony incompetence with a cell phone”; the bear hero should be charged with two felonies; “felony action while thinking with Little Johnson” and “felony cohabitation with a seriously incompetent video maker”. Trying to appreciate the unique nature of the encounter was completely destroyed by the horrible recording.

Personally I would want my wife on the deck with a rifle or shotgun as backup, just in case exactly what happened actually happened.

Though I wouldn't have put myself in the situation to begin with.

MTMilitiaman said:

Again, nobody likes having to do it. Those of us who live in rural areas usually do so because we enjoy nature. But we also learn through constant interaction with her that Mother Nature is at times harsh, even cruel. Living in nature demands you be tough enough to make the difficult decisions necessary to ensure the safety and survival of you and yours. When fences and peeing and spot lights and loud noises fail, there's the 12 gauge slug or a 180 gr JSP from a .30-6.

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I agree. This reminds me of a city slicker I met once who came to work for the same outfit as I do. He was moving out of town to a subdivision away from city lights. There's people, but it's a rich out of the way neighborhood where animals still show up. He asked me if I'd heard of any mountain lions over there, and I actually had about a month earlier. I told him that. His response was that they had put up a 6 foot fence in the back yard so his 5 year old son could be safe. I just stared at him, and said "So that's a good effort but a six foot fence is not a barrier to a mountain lion. It can easily jump clear over that without even touching it." He looked puzzled and said "Well then what should I do?" I replied "Don't leave bait like garbage sitting out, and get your son a German Shepard, or some other big dog that will let you know when something's wrong." He replied "Boy, I sure would hate to have to explain to my son that his dog got eaten!" I responded "Well it's a hell of a lot better than explaining to your wife that your son was eaten."

Sometimes hard choices have to be made when you choose to live around animals. But birdshot should be used on birds, or snakes, or rodents, not on apex predators.

Watching it again. On the left there is a cub going towards the dog. At around :14 or so the Sow looked like it ran toward the dog, probably protecting it.

At that point he came out with the shotgun. Protecting his dog from what I can tell. Lucky he didn't get mauled or killed.

I see it as pure luck the guy didn't get mauled.

I would not have approached the situation the same way but to each their own.

ohihunter2014 said:

Being a lifelong hunter i too have a very large passion for animals and not just to take their life. I hate watching stuff suffer, wounded, etc. I instantly thought man she must have took a full choke of birdshot to the leg to roll like that and now she will go lay somewhere and suffer, get infection, etc and die a possible slow death.

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Many years ago I shot a normal sized whitetail doe and when I was butchering her I discovered a whole bunch of birdshot pellets in her neck. There was no visible wound or scar so she had apparently been walking around with them for quite some time. I’m not excusing the guy, but maybe the bear came out of it OK. Wild animals can have pretty surprising recuperative powers.

Some people choose to live their lives in a way I simply don't understand. This guy is one of them.

I guess it's a good thing God looks after drunks, fools, and little children.