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It is a beautiful summer morning in the most pristine backcountry in North America, with rugged snow-capped peaks, broad forested valleys, meadows filled with elk and deer. You are hiking down a trail. Suddenly you stop. In the trail lies a pile of mashed raspberries, enough to fill a large bucket. The pile still steams in the cool morning air. You think about it for a moment. Slowly, the hair rises on the back of your neck, and your heart climbs into your throat, beating faster.
Bears!
We may fear them or love them, but above all, we who visit the backcountry respect their power. For the bear is the world's largest land carnivore and one of the few animals that prey on humans. We don't seem able to make up our minds about bears: We have difficulty living close to them, yet most of us don't want to live without then, at least in remote wildland areas. The truth is, this animal that stirs up so many ambivalent feelings among backcountry users is more than just another wilderness species: for many, the bear is the symbol of truly wild country.
If a wilderness species is one that requires large amounts of relatively pristine habitat yet possesses a limited tolerance for humans in its wild state, then bears easily qualify. Here is an animal, like elk or moose, that generally does best in the absence of people. As the human presence grows, however, some animals lose their shyness and become habituated to human ways. When this happens, scientists say a species is "behaviourly corruptible".
Unlike the less aggressive elk or moose, once a bear becomes habituated, people won't tolerate it's close company. When bears have lost their fear and interact freely with humans, there is danger – not just to humans, but also to bears. In the words of bear biologist Chris Servheen, perhaps a sharper definition of a true wilderness species might be an animal that best lives outside a human-influenced environment and that people refuse to tolerate in close association. If you apply this definition in light of the growing number of recreationists visiting bear country, it's obvious that bears may have more to fear from us than we do from them.
When Bears Meet Man
There are three recognized species of bears in North America: black, brown and polar. Because polar bears inhabit country that is less accessible to most visitors, the following discussion applies mainly to black and brown bears, and more specifically, the brown bear subspecies considered most controversial, the grizzly. Although our primary concern is how to reduce impact on bears, a knowledge of the different evolutionary paths of bears helps in understanding their behaviour when confronted by humans.
The black bear evolved in mountains and forests – areas with plenty of cover and trees. According to Stephen Herrero, author of Bear Attacks, when placed in a threatening situation, black bears usually adapt by fleeing or climbing a tree instead of attacking. Still, between 1960 and 1980, black bears injured more than 500 people in North America. Some 90 percent of these recorded bear-inflicted injuries were considered minor, however.
Grizzly and polar bears evolved in high plains and open meadows, tundra, and polar ice, with virtually no place to hide. Their best defense became a good offense, and herein lies the problem: they are unpredictably aggressive.
Compared with black bears, grizzlies at first appear relatively benign. Herrero reports that fewer than 200 documented injuries between 1900 and 1980 were due to grizzly bear attacks. Why is this number so low if grizzlies are much more aggressive than blacks? First, most wildland recreation takes place in country that is primarily black bear habitat. Second, black bears outnumber grizzlies by more than ten to one, so the chances of encountering a black bear are much better. Although this may explain the comparatively smaller number of grizzly attacks, it tells us nothing about the severity of grizzly-inflicted injury. Nearly 50 percent of the injuries were classed as major, requiring hospitalization for more than 24 hrs, or resulting in death.
Aggressive bear encounters occur for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most common: a bear is surprised at close range, a female bear is protecting her young, or a bear is protecting a food source. In each of these instances, bears are defending what they deem is rightfully theirs, whether it be space, young or food. Far less common in wild populations, but more frequent where they've become habituated to humans, are bears that actively pursue people as prey.
Although their life history, habitat, and response to people vary considerable, the three bear species have several basic traits in common: They are long-lived, intelligent, and opportunistic. Because bears have the ability to take advantage of any food source within their environment, once they have exploited human food, they continue to seek it out. The possibility of changing their ehavior once bears have received such positive reinforcement is remote. Before 1970, more than half of all grizzly-inflicted injuries in national parks occurred in Yellowstone National Park, where bears had become "corrupted" by feeding at garbage dumps and campgrounds.
From this brief survey of bear behaviour, we might conclude that all bears are dangerous and that encounters between bears and people can and do lead to serious injury. There is another side to the coin, however: people-caused injury to bears. When humanity invades their habitat and conflict occurs, bears are heavy losers. Since the settlement of the contiguous United States, the grizzly's population has dwindled from an estimated 100,000 bears to probably fewer than 1,000. When conflict results in injury to people, the bear is often destroyed. For the first eighty years of this century, grizzlies were responsible for fourteen human deaths in the lower forty-eight states. During just five of those years – between 1968 and 1973 – 180 grizzlies were killed, most close to or within the boundaries of national parks.
Both bears and people have much to gain by mutual avoidance.
In grizzly country, hiking groups should never be smaller than four people, if possible. Since few grizzly attacks have occurred where people are gathered close together in numbers of four or more, we must assume there's some imposing feature in a group's appearance that deters grizzlies from an aggressive response, even when their critical space is violated. Nonetheless, a group is ineffective if its members are not close together.
Making loud noises along the trail is another way to ensure that you don't surprise a bear. Whistling, singing, ringing a bell,
clapping, and loud talking are all effective. These should be used anytime a group enters a forest, brushy area, willow patch, or terrain where visibility is impaired, such as rolling hills or dips in tundra. Never should anyone make noises like a hurt animal or a bear, since these sounds may act as an attractant. Keep in mind that roaring streams masks sounds, so be
particularly cautious when approaching one without an open view.
Campsite Selection
When choosing a campsite in bear country, keep away from places where bears are commonly found – their food sources and travel paths. Usually, the best choice is to select an elevated campsite in moderately open country. This practice allows both you and a bear greater chance of detection and less chance for surprise. In grizzly country, it's particularly reassuring to locate your campsite in an area with a scattering of climbable trees. Unlike black bears, grizzlies are less likely to climb a tree. Thick trees and brush, however, only increase the potential for a confrontation.
Where you anticipate bears, especially grizzlies, your kitchen site should determine your campsite. Here, it's best to forgo
the normal practice of keeping all food far from water. Locating the kitchen close to running water helps keep the area free of food odours by absorbing and transporting minute food particles and cooking wastewater away from your campsite. Designate one general cooking area by a stream for everyone in the group, then position the sleeping area at least 100 yards from this site. If the terrain allows, locating tents out of the streambed and up on a bluff will keep food odours away from the sleeping area.
If camping along the streambed is the only possibility, choose a site at least 100 yards upstream of the cooking area. The usual down-valley winds of the evening will keep food odours from the sleeping area most nights. It's true that up-valley winds of the morning may reverse the process and blow odours in your direction: if a confrontation occurs, however, it's far better if it happens during day light, when the bear is easily seen. In brushy or flat lowland areas, the camping choices are less clear. Here you should keep to more open areas and maintain at least the 100-yard minimum distance from your cooksite.
If you're camping along the coast, camp on the beach instead of in the nearby forest. Out in the open, you will have a better chance of forming a group if you're confronted by a bear. Cook close to the high-tide line, then sleep at least 100 yards up or down the beach from this area.
In-Camp Techniques
After setting up camp, practice impeccable camping by keeping all food and food odours separated from your sleeping area. Plan your meals so that what is cooked is promptly eaten. Don't spill food or wipe your hands or utensils on your clothes. The smell of fish or other greasy foods is especially attractive to bear: minimize their contact with clothing and equipment. Consider cooking in special clothing, such as nylon wind gear, that stays at the cooksite when you're done cooking and can be easily washed. Many people even wear a stocking hat over their hair, since hair readily absorbs food odours. After each meal, wash your face and hands in the stream.
Place all food and cook gear in specified bags, minimize food contact with the rest of your equipment, and keep odorous articles like soap and toothpaste in the cooking area. Remember to transfer trail food from day packs back to cooking sites by nightfall; under no circumstances should you keep food of any kind in your tent.
If you've located your cooking site beside a stream, clean utensils of all food particles, rinse them directly in the stream, then bag them with your remaining food. Any minor food residue will be washed downstream. Small amounts of cooking water can also be deposited in the stream rather than scattered widely, as is normally recommended. Use your best judgement as you evaluate the volume and resiliency of the stream. High volume rivers or streams can withstand direct immersion when you are washing pots: low volume streams, on the other hand, simply can't absorb this kind of impact. If you choose not to use the stream, use a sump that concentrates wastewater in one spot and minimizes the spread of odours. Always cover this sump with sand or soil after use.
If you carry canned meat, such as bacon or tuna, cook and eat it just before leaving camp. Burn the can in a fire to destroy the odour, then place it in a plastic bag and carry it out. Any knife used to clean fish should be kept with other cooking articles, and the fish themselves should be cooked and eaten immediately: don't save them for breakfast. It's best to catch fish away from camp and clean them there. Use the same discretion as in deposition of wastewater. If the stream has an ample volume and the area is used infrequently, throw the viscera back into the water, to be carried downstream. If the stream is too small to absorb this kind of impact, or if the area is subject to more than occasional use, deposit the fish remains at least a quarter mile from camp.
Around camp, always be cautious of bears, even though there may be no evidence indicating their presence. Most experts agree that it's advisable to sleep in tents in bear country. Although no protection against a determined bear, a tent may dissuade a mildly curious one from approaching closer. If you still desire to sleep under the stars, you should always be near a tent, ready to get inside if a bear is suspected in the area. The first person rising in the morning must be particularly alert, and should walk to the cooking area with appropriate noise and a visual check of the area. If you wander away from camp when scouting for firewood or to relieve yourself, be extra-cautions in grizzly habitat. An excursion near camp is probably safe because of the noise from camp activities, but a longer walk is best made with a minimum of four people.
How to Protect Your Food
Losing food to a bear creates problems for both bears and visitors. The bear may become habituated to obtaining food from humans, making it more likely a confrontation will eventually occur. Moreover, you may have to cut short your trip because your food and perhaps your equipment are gone. In remote areas where access is limited, your survival may depend on these items. Thus, it's particularly important to store them in a location that is as bear -resistant as possible.
Keep your food at least 100 yards from your tent site. In forest or dense brush, the safest storage area is often your cooking area. Food odours are concentrated in one location, and no one risks a trip to yet another place to gather or retrieve the food containers.
Where trees are common, visitors often hang their food out of reach of bears. But if bears are long habituated to humans, securing food from experienced bear "thieves" can prove challenging, to say the least. Where bears are particularly adept, sometimes the managing agency provides a method of protecting food. You should realise, however, that established storage facilities may be indicative of and area with "problem" bears: even these methods may not suffice against a determined animal.
Numerous methods of food-hanging have been devised, from simple poles that lift a container of food high up the trunk of a tree, to elaborate suspension systems hung between two trees. Your choice of methods often depends on the ease of construction and the species of bear. (Grizzlies aren't adept climbers, but their reach is great). Rigging a suspension system each night is a laborious task, but must be done correctly if you want to protect your food. Get into a routine every day, whether or not fresh bear signs are evident. Always allow ample time at the end of the day to not only cook but also hang your food before darkness falls. The best intentions most often fail when you arrive late in camp and don't properly protect your food.
Bear Avoidance
The easiest way to avoid bears is to stay away from those wildland areas where bears live. For visitors who fear bears of who fear for bears, this choice is sound and, in specific instances, may have strong merit. The option, however, limits backcountry use to relatively few areas, since bears – particularly black bears – inhabit such a large and varied amount of wildland that a map of their range covers most of North America. Assuming that most visitors want to recreate in lands where bears still roam, the next best choice is to avoid a confrontation to ensure both human safety and a safe future for bears. If you actions are successful, you will see either no bear or a distant one.
Once you make this commitment to avoid bears, your next decision is to know the species of bear you're trying to avoid. Information from the land managing agency, as well as from others who have visited the area, is a good place to start. Perhaps even more important, learn whether the area has a history of bear – people conflict. Then evaluate the potential for a possible encounter, choosing a level of avoidance that lessens the chance of confrontation. Hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smokies, where you may expect black bears to be habituated to human food, requires a level of precaution that you may choose to ignore in Colorado, where black bears are normally aloof and secretive. The level of avoidance should grow in relation to the potential for conflict; backpacking Alaska's coastal tundra, where you may encounter both polar bears and grizzlies, calls for the highest level of bear-avoidance techniques.
In the following discussion, we assume a worst-cast scenario. You're in backcountry that harbours bears habituated to humans, or you fear that an encounter may produce some unpleasant results (to you or the bear), or both. Sometimes our recommendations run counter to practices we advocate in situations where either bears are absent or conflicts with humans are rare. A careful judgement must be made when concern for your safety or the safety of bears outweighs your goal of minimizing impact to other aspects of the wildland environment. Weigh the factors of bear species, the potential for conflict, and the possible consequences of that conflict, then choose the technique that not only best reduces your chance of an encounter, but at the same time harms the backcountry the least.
A Trinity Worth Remembering
There are three general guidelines to lessen the chance of a bear encounter. First, do everything you can to avoid surprising a bear. All bears have a critical space they will defend if they feel threatened. This space varies with environment, time of year, abundance of food, and the individual bear. The critical distance may be as little as a few feet for a black bear, 150 feet for a male grizzly, or as much as several hundred yards for a grizzly sow with cubs. If you're far enough away that a bear doesn't consider you a threat, then your chances for avoiding a confrontation are good. Usually, when a bear gets a whiff of human scent or hears human noise, and is not confronted within its critical space, it quickly leaves.
Second, should you find yourself accidentally inside a bear's critical space, maximize your presence. If challenged with what it perceives as a threat, a bear will size it up and act accordingly. At some point, a bear will flee and not confront the danger: this decision appears to depend on the physical size of the threat. For black bears, one person may elicit a bear's fast retreat; for grizzlies, the more people the better. Statistics on grizzly attacks show that large groups of people are safer than small ones. There are no documented attacks on parties of six or more persons, and your chances are extremely good even with a group of four people. For this reason, your group should be large enough to ensure some measure of safety if you travel in grizzly country.
Finally, avoid attracting bears. A bear's sense of smell is excellent; they're attracted by food smells and other odorous materials, such as fish, soap and deodorant. Make every effort to reduce these bear-attracting odours to a minimum, and keep them apart from your sleeping area.
Travelling in Bear Country
When travelling in bear country, you can minimize the chance of a confrontation by avoiding certain seasons, and by planning your route away from specific places where bears are most likely to be found. Bears usually travel far and wide in search of food, and depending on the season, you can make some general assumptions about their presence in relation to food sources. During spring, after a winter of inactivity, a bear often feeds on young vegetation on lower southern exposures, the first ground opened to the sun. In summer, a bear may range from the seashore to above timberline, living up to its reputation as a wandering omnivore, and feasting on everything from dead whales to alpine flowers. Come autumn, abundant berry patches and fish-spawning streams are favourite bear habitat. Often, simply using areas other than these will lessen your chances of encountering a bear. But what do you do if you find yourself unavoidably in prime bear habitat?
Like people, bears usually choose familiar paths of least resistance. Stay away from game trails through brush or forest, particularly bear trails found along spawning streams, rivers and berry patches, and through passes on ridge tops. These trails are often staggered oval depressions, as bears commonly step in the same places. Or they may be two distinct lanes,
the distance apart of a bear's legs. Don't camp near such trails, or close to human trails, as bears use these too, especially at night.
As you travel in bear country, be conscious of tracks, scat, and mounds of excavated earth where a bear has dug for food. Consider travelling out of the area and camping elsewhere if you see an abundance of these signs. Avoid all carrion or places with the smell of decaying meat; you may be near a bear's food cache. After eating their fill, bears – particularly grizzlies – often cover a kill with dirt, branches, or forest litter, then bed close by. If a grizzly is near its food cache, it will be short tempered and unpredictable. Stop as soon as you smell something foul, and make a wide berth.
In bear habitat without trees, food protection isn't as simple. Usually, open country means you're more likely to encounter
grizzlies, but often these bears are less habituated to human presence and aren't expecting a handout. Store your food on the ground (wrapping it in extra plastic bags may reduce odours) at least 100 yards from your tent site and cooking area. If you place your food bags in separate locations, chances are even better a bear won't discover all the food in one night. It's wise to mix your meals so that all breakfasts or suppers aren't in the same food bag; if a bear discovers a bag, it's less likely you'll lose all of one kind of food. Although this method is not as foolproof as hanging, in open country there are few options. Above all, never sleep with food: it's better to lose your food than to risk a close encounter with a bear.
In recent years, a new product for protecting food has appeared that may make former methods obsolete – a bear-resistant, unbreakable plastic container. Rangers in Alaska's Denali National Park report excellent results when backpackers carry food in this lightweight container with a tight-fitting but removable end. From 1982 to 1987 incidences of bears obtaining food from backpackers dropped 74 percent. When these containers become commercially available, they'll offer backcountry users a more reliable alternative, particularly in treeless bear country.
Sanitation
Like many other animals, bears search out and excavate what humans bury, including feces. For this reason, surface deposition is especially appropriate in bear country, provided all other factors (impact levels, water pollution, direct contact) are carefully considered. In popular areas that are also frequently used by bears, catholes may present the only
realistic option: possible excavation by a bear is not sufficient reason to forgo burying feces if you suspect that other people may find your waste.
Menstruation may present a problem for women travelling where bears are common. Recently, in a Canadian laboratory, researcher Bruce Cushing tested polar bears for their attraction to seal scent (the odour of the natural prey of polar bears) and human menstrual blood. Both elicited a maximal response from captive bears. In later field tests, used tampons were detected by polar bears nearly two-thirds of the time. Although these tests are far from offering conclusive evidence that menstruating women are subject to attack by tears, it does suggest that women who are travelling and camping in bear country should use caution. Where black bears are the only kind of bear, the potential danger is much less. But perhaps in grizzly or polar bear country, the best precaution for women is to use tampons rather than pads.
Disposal of used tampons is a problem that is less easily solved. Burial almost guarantees excavation where bears are active, possibly habituating bears to the taste of human blood. Moreover, the usual practice of triple-bagging used tampons and packing them out with other trash isn't the best solution from the standpoint of safety. Perhaps the best compromise is to burn the tampons in a hot fire, making sure they're completely consumed. If not, bag up the charred remains, and pack them out as trash: the odour will be gone and the danger much diminished.
Bear in Mind
Travel into any wildland area always entails risk. Although the practices we've outlined may reduce your chances of a confrontation with a bear, they don't guarantee your safety. An element of risk will always be present, for very little is known for certain about bear behaviour in relation to humankind. Like people, bears are intelligent, unpredictable and capable of inflicting great harm; it is for these reasons we respect them.
One thing seems certain however. It's time we began thinking from the perspective of this wilderness species before its wildness disappears and we're left with an animal that no longer symbolizes wild country. It is people who have entered into the last strongholds of the bear, not the other way around. Our behaviour must reflect our respect and protect bears from us, as much as us from bears.