That is scarry as hell. Everybody note the speed of the bear? If he'd missed that shot, he'd be dead or mangled badly.
Am I missing something?
It looks like he was inside and went out to confront the bear. Now maybe I’m missing the point but WHY?
If the bears were outside and not damaging anything, then why n9t leave them alone........
So could someone with more experience with bears tell me what I’m missing that what he did made any sense?
I like critters, and a big part of my education and career revolves around managing habitat for them.
Killing an animal or scaring it away isn't usually something I advocate when the animal is minding it's own business. However, there is a philosophy out there that when a predator loses its fear of humans, that behavior can be learned by its offspring and proliferated in the species. This is a detriment to the species overall because it will breed conflict between man and animals, and lead to unessecary future deaths on both sides and public outcry to do something about it. Typically that something is destructive to the animals. So this philosophy states that if an animal shows no fear of man and is dangerous, you serve the species by removing it from the breeding population. I tend to agree when I consider the learning capacity of many predators.
However, another tactic is relocation coupled with hazing. You literally capture an animal and scare the crap out of it with loud noises and flashing lights. With some animals it works, others are cranky enough they just don't care. Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) experimented with this on crocodiles in Australia. They would trap an animal and then drive around it with boats rather fast blowing on whistles and shinning it with spotlights. The idea is the same as Pavlov's dogs. The animal associates humans with extreme stress and fear.
My personal opinion is that this guy made a major mistake going outside. If you have a reoccurring issue with bears setting up loudspeakers to blast it with annoyingly loud noise or music will probably cause it to find your property too annoying to prowl. Left to nose around your property without harassment, a gutsy keystone predator like a bear will likely end up on your porch in fairly short order. It's just curiosity. However, bear spray from a second story window may then drive it off.
My sisters father in law put up three posts and three bird feeders before he realized the black bear damage wasn't going to stop. Removing food sources is key also.
I feel the bear in the video should have been driven off by other means that didn't involve injuring it, because again it solves future problems and helps the species, rather than allowing it to wander off and charge someone else due to it's now injured and likely defensive disposition. Or, kill it outright.
Birdshot in bears is so silly, I can't help but wonder if this guy will end up with a stupid human award at some point.
Bears are often brazen and are programmed genetically not to take crap. If they kill something and eat it, it's only a benefit. They are their own nuclear deterrent and typically for them there's no downside to dropping a bomb.
Drive it away without injury, or kill it with an appropriate firearm gets my vote. It's hard saying that because I really do care about animals. The bottom line here though is that birdshot is not appropriate. That guy just won the lottery. I wonder if he realizes it.
