MovieChat Forums > Grizzly Rage (2007) Discussion > Usefull information regarding bear attac...

Usefull information regarding bear attacks.


As a minor expert on bears and a major expert on bear related security, I think it is important that people realise that the characters in this film did not follow the standard guidelines on how to act when confronted by an angry grizzly. Specifically, trying to burn a bear with petrol is a major "no-no" and will never work, in fact it is actually listed on the page of "DO NOTS"!

However I really enjoyed the film! If you were a minor expert on bears and a major expert on bear related security you would have too.

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I am no expert but am very interested in bear and lion attacks and have never heard of petrol being used to burn bears as an effective deterrent against Grizzly Rage.

In fact according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade a man was killed September 2002 by a Black bear on an oil rigging site – Could the oil from the rig have triggered the bear into “attack mode” in the same way the petrol did when Wes foolishly attempted to burn Gentle Ben?

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An interesting theory.

I am familiar with that case at Mount Spieker in 2002 and numerous other accounts of bear attacks/killings at industrial oil sites. As you are probably aware bears have a very keen sense of smell and it is the smell of food that usually brings them into contact with humans. However, on all oil rigging sites, the overwhelming odour is that of petroleum and one would reasonably assume that this would keep the honourable Ursus at bay.

I am going to go back and check my archived material on these attacks to see if the eye witness accounts suggest that the beers were in some way worked up into some kind of petrol fueled blood lust.

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Incidentally, did anybody else notice the revealing goof in this movie? I am not going to say when (you will have to wait until my goof submission appears on this site) but see if you can spot a crew member in the background in one of the scenes. :)

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Junk mail9,

As I mentioned I'm really interested in bear attacks. If you don't mid me asking what are your Bear Attack credentials and do you work in this field? I'd be really keen to get involved in this beyond just a hobby. You may be interested to know I have my Fish and Wildlife Management scout badge along with a Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award, and my Dad once ran over a badger with his land rover.

Many Thanks,

Jiff

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Jiff,

Good to hear about your interest in bear (and lion) attack, as it is becoming a dead art since it no longer has the hip image it once did.

I started in the field as a bear conservationist with the Canadian Park Rangers, but was soon seduced by the glamourous world of the bear attack expert. I had to leave the rangers after a field experiment went horribly, horribly wrong. I have since worked as a freelance beer attack consultant, although I am now semi-retired.

If you are serious about entering the field I can give you some information and contacts to get you started. Oh, and be carefull on those roads, the smell of a fresh badger carcass can attract a Grizzly from 5 miles away.

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I’m very impressed with your Park Ranger experience, I know you all get special training in bear combat. I’d love to kill a real bear, especially Gentle Ben. He just seemed so cocky wandering around the woods like he was king of the world. And why did he pick on those 4 teenagers? They were just celebrating graduating and he came along and ruined everything! I can’t stand arrogant bears - they are my least favourite breed of bear.

Also why was Gentle Ben so nice to Mark Wedloe but killed Wes, Sean, Lauren and Rich??? It just doesn’t make any sense. Please explain.

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I have heard 2 conflicting theories about the best course of action if a black bear attacks in open space (not in the woods as it’s pretty obvious what you do then :p)

1)Stand your ground and as soon as the bear comes into range punch him square on the nose. The bear then becomes like a house trained pet and will be obedient to you for the rest of his days
2)Shoot the bear with a small gauge riffle twice in both knees – This will cause the bear to collapse, allowing you to finish him off with a rock, small log or spanner, which I have heard is technically legal as opposed to killing him outright with a gun which is obviously illegal.

Are either of these correct? If so which?

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Intersting...well, personally,if a bear is attacking me, and I have any sort of functional firearm that will do the job, I would personally finish him off, as it is not necessarily against the law, as you are criminally protected under the Canadian Criminal code by s. 34(2b) which states:

"Every one who is unlawfully assaulted and who causes death or grievous bodily harm in repelling the assault is justified if he believes, on reasonable grounds, that he cannot otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm."

Hence, under such circumstances, I'll shoot him in the head, walk away with my life, knowing that I am criminally protected and, God forbid, the bloodthirsty (hardly) people from the Ministry of National Resources give me a hard time, I shall negotiate the worst-case scenario of a higher-price bear tag.
However, you may not be entirely wrong in your statement, but a bit confused; perhaps such a case you have heard of is in the event that the person carrying the firearm is not a licensed hunter, was carrying the firearm for the purpose of out of season hunting (poaching) or if he discharged the firearm in a semi-residential area (i.e. park, etc). These are, though, all firearms laws that were broken, and would not be influenced by merely knee-capping the bear. Besides, I don't care how 'close to dead' that bear is, unless his eyes are open and glazed, Im not going anywhere close to his weapons (teeth and claws), because he's likely to flinch out, running on sure adrenaline, and cause damage to me, thus defeating the purpose.

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Jeff, your post may be correct in referring to an attack in open space, but you are dead wrong about what to do in case of an attack in outer space...

If you somehow encounter the bear while inside your capsule, try to brace yourself against a wall opposite the bear, then launch yourself as hard as you can in the bear's direction. Since there is no gravity in space, you will in effect become a missile and knock the bear away from you, since it will not be able to use its weight advantage to pin you against the ground. Keep doing this until you can maneuver it to a dock or opening, then blast it out of the airlock.

If you encounter the bear while on spacewalk, try and get behind the bear and remove its air hose. Since bears do not have to breathe air, this will only slow, and not kill, the bear. However, with no tether to its craft, you can try and maneuver toward it again and deliver a swift kick to its groin. This will incapacitate the bear, as well as launch it away from you and toward the nearest planet, which might be earth, n which case it will re-enter the atmosphere, make its way to the wilderness, and continue its life of murder, ants, and honey

CAUTION: Do NOT let the bear near the controls of your space craft!!! Do you think Pluto is no longer a planet for no reason? Now who's being naive?

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A Ranger once gave me some advice about how to handle myself when in the woods where there might be bears. First he said to wear something that would alert the bear to my presense, like a little bell. He also said to carry some sort of self defense measure, like a can of pepper spray. Also he said it was necessary to be able to identify bears by their droppings. A black bear would have small droppings with berries and squirrel fur in it, while a grizzly bear droppings would have little bells in it and smell like pepper spray.

Help stamp out and do away with redundancy

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[deleted]

What does retarted mean? A great genius like you should at least know how to spell, or maybe that is word I am not familiar with. And for your information, that was a joke, an old joke, but of course a wildlife expert like you doesn't understand humor.

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it may be an old joke but it was bloody funny :)
LOL.

~~~~
'Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?'

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Its interesting because Wes told the one guy one of the proper things to do. Don’t sneak up; talk quietly, back away slowly. Don’t run if it charges fall to the ground and curl up into a ball and pretend you’re deceased. I have also heard you should try and make yourself look as big as possible. However I think that is in a situation of it being a smaller bear.

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Unfortunately most bears climb trees a lot better than humans.

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You will never see this in any book on bears, but there are some bears who are absolutely susceptible to another form of persuasion. It's not PC to discuss it, but who cares about sensitvity when lives are at stake.

I'm not talking about prostitution. This is not to say that bears are not susceptible to the art of feminine wiles (or male, because, you know, bears are like any other mammalian species... and again, we are talking solely about male bears here. Female bears are known to scoff in disgust and roll their eyes when a male offers prostitution in exchange for not being eaten. The female will usually be offended that they would have to resort to something like that, and in any case could do a LOT better than you without paying for it. Your only hope there is that they are so annoyed that they just walk away, muttering to themselves, then share the story with their female friends. They may add some details that did NOT occur in the encounter, nd let e tell you, fellas, they will NOT be generous. However, one's backwoods reputation for endowment is a small (or in some folk's cases, quite large and above average) a thing to trade for not being eaten by a bear.) but bears are quite picky and do not typically cotton to the type of female who spends time in the backwoods of america (or canada... hell, especially canada. Why do you people still live there? It's warm down here, in the rest of the world. And by "warm" I don't mean 46 degrees.)

I'm talking about bribery. Let's face it, most bears have no proclivity for finances. As such, they are typically buying crap they don't need and could never possibly use. (I once saw a bear's den with a trampoline, TWO treadmills and a ceramic dog. Seriously! I used to wonder who would ever get one of those ceramic dogs on 'wheel of fortune' I mean, who has taste THAT bad? Well, I guess we now know!) So, not to put to fine a point on it... They could use the cash. Hell, even offer to sit down and draw up a financial plan for them that'll get them out of debt so they can finally afford that house in Saskatchewan (although they should be paying people to live there. Seriously! Because you can tell me how "beautiful" it is in a place, but nothing is beautiful when you have to freeze your sack off to see it. That automatically makes it worth plowing under and erecting coal mines. Just let the bears have it). If you have cash, do what they say to do in the city when accosted by a mugger. Throw the cash one way, and you go the other. Wait untl the bear has given chase to the cash, though, because a bear's natural instinct is to chase what is fleeing, so if you stay in his eyeline, then run, you'll have lost the cash AND most likely be eaten by the bear, which is the best possible situation for the bear. Also, since you know you'll be heading deep into the woods, take as much cash as you can for this very reason. In fact, borrow as much cash as you can from friends and relatives. Trade in your car, take a third mortgage on your house. consider robbing a bank or liquor store. Don't laugh! You'll gladly spend the rest of your life paying off a high interest loan or behind the bars of a prison knowing you didn't get eaten by a bear!

best case scenario? On the small chance you aren't nearly eaten by a bear, you can most likely buy a house or three if you go to saskatchewan. Or Michigan. (Seriously. Isn't the economic decline of that place enough of a sign that God doesn't mean for people to live there? Part of it is north of canada, which is an abomination, and shouldn't be possible!)

So that's it... the untold secret that can help save YOUR life if accosted by a bear. I know no one talks about it, but the poor financial planning by the entire bear species has cost them dearly. They've sold their own relative for their pelts and claws. They have to live in places like canada, or cold parts of the US and Russia (I keep saying... stop living there people! The second we just abandon places where its cold and let the animals have it, the sooner THE MAN will release their weather controlling technology, and the sooner animals will have to support themselves. We'll see how many bears kill us when we might be able to approve their loan for a 2002 kia... because seriously, who else would buy one of those things?)

Once again, we see that all stereotypes are true. PC may indeed cost many lives everyday, but it doesn't have to cost yours. Know the truth about bears. Just remember this acronym.

B - bad with money
E - Easily tricked into buying crap they see on hsn
A - Absolutely unable to see future consequences of current bad financial decisions
R - Really bad with money
S - Stupid.

Remember that, and I promise you'll walk out of the forest a little lighter in the wallet, but heavier in every other way, since you won't be dead, and in effect, weightless to yourself, in that you won't be responsible for hauling yourself around anymore.

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[deleted]

ily

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