Time for Another Bear Profile

[HMW12]

For those interested in Grizzlies, there is a wonderful book Grizzly Heart by Charlie Russell. He took 3 orphaned cubs to the wilderness of the Kamchatka ( may have that spelled wrong) Peninsula in Russia and taught them how to survive in the wild. I bougt the book years ago becuase of the cover picture Charlie in the stream teaching one of the cubs to fish.

It is a wonderful narrative that presents a balanced picture of the grizzly bear and dispels some of the negative preconceptions of these magnificent animals. And I beleive that at one point he states he never carried any weapons when he was out and about being mother bear to the cubs. The hardcover version I had also had some amazing photos.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments.

For those interested in Grizzlies, there is a wonderful book Grizzly Heart by Charlie Russell....It is a wonderful narrative that presents a balanced picture of the grizzly bear and dispels some of the negative preconceptions of these magnificent animals...

Bears are neither good nor bad. They're just animals trying to survive. Some of them view people as threats, some as peer level animals, and some (thankfully few) see us at a lower rung on the food chain than they are.

The biggest misconception that people can have about bears is that they are anything other than what they are. Which is highly intelligent, opportunistic apex predators that are nearly always hungry. And they have personalities. Some are timid, some aggressive, some curious, etc. Seeing how one behaves has nothing to do with how the next one will behave. Over a 30 year period Russian biologist Vitaly Nikolayenko documented some bears laying down within a few feet of him to take a nap while others chased him up trees and into rivers to escape being killed. Approaching wildlife casually, becoming over confident, or placing human emotions on animals is a recipe for trouble.

There are three notable cases of people with years of experience being killed by bears. Wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino was killed and eaten in Kamchatka in 1996. Also in Kamchatka Russian biologist Vitaly Nikolayenko was killed in 2003 after 30 years living with the bears there. Vitaly was killed within a couple of months of Timothy Treadwell in Alaska who spent 15 years among the bears before him and his lady friend were killed and eaten. What do they all have in common? Statistics caught up with them. They finally ran into the wrong bear on the wrong day.