midwest's Link
I hadn't heard of anyone using this old deer hunting technique for bowhunting deer much less for bowhunting elk.
I know tree stands are becoming more popular for elk hunting but are elk drives catching on?
I've got news for you buddy: That bear was not as scared as you were. Otherwise, he would have run away. Instead, he chose to bite you on the head, then the leg. Grizzly Fight or Flight leans heavily to the "Fight" side of the isle. MT grizz have no natural fear of humans.
And I can't stand it when I read this "it wasn't the bear's fault" kind of nonsense. The encounter wasn't the bear's fault, that's on you for waking a sleeping bear. The bear's reaction, though, is entirely on the bear. If it had killed you, that would have made him a man-killer. When you wake a sleeping deer, they don't bite you on the head, then bite your leg and shake you like a dog shaking a rat.
If a guy cuts me off on the freeway and I pull out a gun and shoot him, he's guilty of a traffic violation and I'm guilty of murder.
This society's transference of guilt to a prior action in all cases has gotten so out of hand. I had a patient once sue a hardware store when he sat in a display chair and it broke. It wasn't his fault that he weighed just shy of 400 lbs and plopped his fat ass down on a rickity chair, it was whoever put the chair together.
Grizzlies aren't deer. "it wasn't the bear's fault" "nonsense" as you term it was his understanding that he was the one ventured way beyond the safe zone for a grizzly encounter and didn't consider the bear to be at fault. Nor did he want the bear to be killed because of the attack. This is a completely different scenario than a bear stalking and attacking him or raiding livestock, etc.
Many of us who live among and encounter potentially deadly predators don't expect them to be completely scared of us. There are boundaries that exist in most human/bear/lion encounters and sometimes humans are the ones who bear the responsibility for crossing those lines. It's usually the predator that pays the penalty by being killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If it's not habitual behavior that will continue to be dangerous to others in the future, there's no reason for that bear to be euthanized.
I just don't sympathize with defending the actions of animals. That's quasi-anthropomorphism. Their temperament comes from instinct, not frontal lobe logic.
I've taken 7 back country trips into grizzly country in the past 15 years. I don't hate them. I don't fear them. I don't get any sort of nostalgia for them. I don't defend them when they attack people.
As a side note, perhaps I'm jaded, but I feel zero remorse when an animal that is not endangered is destroyed after a negative run-in with a human. And grizzlies are not endangered no matter how they're listed.
Thanks for sharing the link Nick
Good luck, Robb
Interesting comment about the gag response in large mammals.
