Are you kidding? Don't you know that the most dangerous thing in the woods is a wounded animal especially a bear with cubs? That is seriously misguided advice my friend. And BTW I've had lots of bears within 25 yards of me. I've had bear within 10 feet of me more than once. I actually have some photos of one somewhere from the days when people fed black bears in the Smokeys without any hassle from any rangers. It was a stupid thing to do but everyone did it at the time. That kind of thing has gone the way of the Dodo bird but if you live long enough you'll remember things people don't do any more too.
Also there are plenty of black bears in Alaska. The ratio is far from being 10-1.
And yes it's true that there have only been a relatively small number of black bear attacks on humans that ended in the death of a human. 35 might be about right for the past 100 years. But
23 of those fatal attacks have occured in the past 20 years. 16 of them happened in the last 10 years. There has been a huge increase in the number of attacks and fatalities statistically. That has a lot to do with the efforts of the government to restore black bears in parts of the country where they were extinct for a long time. For example there's a state park within 2 miles of my farm. The state turned 500 bears loose in that park in one year. That's the year I saw my first black bear in this area. Since then they have taken up residence both on my farm and in the area I live in both of which are pretty remote locations. I've seen bears in both places and a lot of signs including signs in my yard. I've also been harassed by a bear that was obviously used to food handouts from the tourists at a part I go to in Virginia. I've been going to that park for 30 years or more. There was never a bear problem until the last 3 or 4 years. Now they are a huge problem. There's a bear reserve not far from that park and the whole Pine Mountain range is home to a huge bear population now.
Things have changed big time i.e. bears. They are out there in the woods and they are getting more dangerous. A man was killed just last year at another park I've been going to for decades. I have hiked the trail he was on many times. I never saw a bear sign anywhere in that park or in the national forest that surrounds it and I've covered a large part of that area in off road vehicles. It used to be a very popular destination for that sort of thing but Bill Clinton changed that. Now people go elsewhere and the bear have taken over in the part I've been to many times. People from the Kentucky area will know this story. It took place in the Natural Bridge state park which is surrounded by the Daniel Boone National Forest. I've been on the trail that guy was one often. It used to be a sheer delight to hike that trail. Now it can be sheer terror according to what I hear. I had hiked the trail many times where a bear tracked me from behind a thicket in the Virginia park I mentioned earlier. I didn't realize what the situation was and I went there unarmed (rangers don't like you having guns in their park) but I won't make that mistake again. Either they allow guns or I won't go.
So don't act like bears aren't a problem now. They are. And for sure don't tell people to wound a bear to scare it off. That's incredibly wrong. I think you should read the article on
this web page. Some of the things they say are:
"If the bear is going to attack you, the best protection is a gun." "Keep firing until the bear's dead because a wounded bear is very dangerous."
"Old or wounded bears can be desperate, either in pain or starving. Bears used to the proximity of people, those that show no fear of humans, can be especially dangerous. Female bears with cubs aggressively defend their young."
