Black bear attacks 12 yr old Michigan girl

[Migrating Bird]

Could you double check that one as it pertains to black bears and/or provide a source?

Sorry, poor memory as this pretains to grizzlies, black bears you should fight back.

Black bears have evolved over the last 400 years from a "fight animal" to a "flight animal" due to man. This one I distinctly remember, that it is based upon the arrival of Europeans.

[Sly]

Can't speak for the others however, I had the pleasure of seeing a slide presentation and meeting Dr. Lynn Rodgers. http://www.bearstudy.org/website/abo...rs,-ph.d..html His research regarding black bears is very impressive.

Here are some of the points I remember pertaining to BLACK BEARS, not Grizzly Bears.

- Mothers will not attack to protect their young, Dr. Rodgers showed a slide of a mother and 2 cubs on the side of a tree. The next slide, he was holding the cubs by the scruff of their necks and the mother was hauling ass in the opposite direction.

Yeah and Tim Treadwell and Steve Erwin used to talk to the animals.

I'd give any mother with young the right of way, for any rule there are 12 exceptions.

There may also be an exception for black bear and cub but I'm not about to test the theory.

[MuddyWaters]

As with most things, including bears, there are no absolutes.

There are only statistical averages, which you can use to decide the probable best way to act in a situation.

If that fails to elicit the desired outcome, one should feel free to improvise.

[Sarcasm the elf]

I've never heard that before.

Here is another article with regards to black bear attacks and Mothers and cubs, his one from the New York Times.

Study of Black Bears Finds It’s Not the Mamas That Should Be Feared the Most


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/sc...ears.html?_r=0

The study also found, contrary to popular perception, that the black bears most likely to kill are not mothers protecting cubs. Most attacks, 88 percent, involved a bear on the prowl, likely hunting for food. And most of those predators, 92 percent, were male.

“Mother bears, whenever they feel threatened or a person is too close, they act very aggressively,” said Stephen Herrero, the study’s lead author. “They make noise, they swat the ground with their paws and they run at people. They want to make you think that they’ll eat you alive, but they almost always stop.”

[Pedaling Fool]

There may also be an exception for black bear and cub but I'm not about to test the theory.

As with most things, including bears, there are no absolutes.

There are only statistical averages, which you can use to decide the probable best way to act in a situation.

If that fails to elicit the desired outcome, one should feel free to improvise.

I'm sure there are exceptions and no one is saying to go test the bear's behavior.

Just correcting the record of black bears being super protective of their young, the truth is not only different, it's the polar opposite. And I've seen this behavior myself, I inadvertently got between a mother and her cubs in SNP, they all went up trees.

[Harrison Bergeron]

[QUOTE=
- Black bears have evolved over the last 400 years from a "fight animal" to a "flight animal" due to man.
[/QUOTE]

And if the humans they encountered today carried mace as frequently as our ancestors carried a guns, they might stay that way.