Black Bear Danger

The black bear population in North America is estimated at 750,000. Since 1900 there have been 67 recorded fatalities, at present about two every year.

There is somewhat  of a mystery when it comes to Newfoundland. There is an estimated population of 10,000 and never a recorded fatality, the bears on average larger than the mainland bears, and there diet, has a high percentage of moose and caribou kills. Personally having hunted and fished from one end of the island to the other, and of course saw bears on a regular bases. The answer to bears coming into camps remote and otherwise was to pick up a stone, and on a couple of occasions pop it off there back, no undue care was taken with the storage of food or garbage.

When I began guiding in a large hunting camp in northern Ontario, the camp over 3 million acres and when the spring and fall hunts we had approximately 250 bait stations. The camp at that time had 5 guides putting out every 2-3 days 50 5 gallon buckets of bait. the bait consisted of  grains or corn mixed with fry oil collected from chip shops in Thunder Bay, as well as candy, jams, honey, rejects from factory, this topped with a generous amount of moose cuttings. The amount of bait going out was considerable, and we built a mixer to accommodate the volume, this would auger the bait into the buckets.

The guides at that time did not carry bear spray or guns, but machetes to cut the extremely thick brush.The highly intelligent bear, was not about to kill the one bringing a huge amount of easy food every 3-4 days.
The bears knew the guides and there trucks, individual baits, had a location and number, we kept records of hits misses. We noticed if you took a different truck into your area there would be a considerable reduction in hits.

On many occasions, when bringing bait to a location, I would catch sight of  a bear waiting for the easy meal, they would move off, never gave it a second though, there was an estimated 800-900 bears in our area. Our camp or the many camps in the area we never heard of a guide attacked.

At that time there were more bears in Ontario than the 1800s, the reduction of the forest to brush areas, was to the advantage of the black bear. In there wisdom the government closed the spring bear hunt, claiming to protect the bear population and killing of female bears, this was not at all true, we did not kill the female for the simple reason, she would send the cubs into the bait first, we would move the hunter to another location, close down that bait to hunting, but keep on baiting. The government never asked the outfitters, the city boys made the decision to close the spring hunt---I was out of a job.
Then I moved to beautiful Alberta, the 1st big plus was the tremendous reduction in bugs, and the amount of fish and wildlife, but most of all the beautiful and wary white tail deer, the ultimate in hunting.
Highway 11 west of Rocky Mountain House was  home to a large white tail deer population, no permission required to hunt and a very large area, bears never came to mind.

A  wide gas line crosses the highway, a good place to hunt, found a suitable stump to sit, got shooting sticks ready, some does crossed,  I was hidden on the side with full camo and face mask, no wind a beautiful sunset. I heard something behind me, thinking it was a deer, I turned slowly, not 50 ft away a huge black bear was stalking slowly towards me in the high grass, still not alarmed I stood to drive him off. To my amazement he did not run, but also stood, he was sniffing, and moving his head, it looked like an attack posture.This became a Mexican standoff, oh no the very day i am carrying my mickey mouse 243, I wished for the pump 12 with slugs. I took the safety off, the scope now a disadvantage, I would have to barrel shoot, and would most likely get one shot off. Time stood still, I could simply raise the rifle and fire, maybe should have.

Then I yelled , something in the order of , better get the hell out of here before somebody gets hurt.We continued to stare, I waited , ready, he decided, and slowly walked away.

Valuable lesson learned, do I carry bear spray ?? Yes, more bear alert, yes. remote areas 30-06. If  I have to go back to an area to pull out a deer,the rifle loaded and ready, bear spray on the belt.