Dean Weingarten writing at Ammoland.

He turned around, and looked. There, no more than 20 feet away, its feet on a tipped over trash can, was a huge black bear. The bear did not notice him immediately.

But Greg’s dog had come out, and peaked around the corner. It growled and emitted a bark, Grrrr..ru..ruff! The bear jumped over the downed trash can, landed with a Woof!, and charged directly at Greg.

Everything happened extremely fast, but Greg had moved into the psychological state of tachypsychia, where everything seems to slow down. This is a common effect when a human perceives a deadly threat. The effect also distorts distance, and can cause tunnel vision, focused on the threat.

Greg said: Oh f*ck! The .45 Kimber appeared in his hand and he was firing, with the bear taking up his whole field of vision. Greg told me:

“Everything went into like, time lapse.” “It seemed like it took forever!”

In Greg’s heightened state of awareness, he could hear the first three bullets hit.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Then his ears were ringing. The bear dropped its head down as he fired the last three shots at extremely close range, Greg said it was three feet or less.

The bear hit the railing of the walkway two feet from him, turned left, and went down the walkway away from Greg, who had the empty Kimber in his hand.

[ … ]

Greg had loaded the magazine with five rounds, with a round in the chamber. He had found, through experience, a fully loaded magazine to be less reliable in his little Kimber.

The cartridges were Federal HST rounds, an aggressive hollow-point design made for defense against humans. The Kimber Ultra Carry II has a three inch barrel, which likely reduces the velocity by 10-15% compared to a standard five inch barrel.

One neighbor said they had seen the bear previously, and believed it to be 500 lbs. Greg initially thought it was 350-400 lbs. Everyone agrees it was a big black bear.

In early November, with plentiful food, it would have had four inches of fat on, under the skin.

[ … ]

A retired officer commented about the bullet’s performance. He said years ago, he had seen a big black bear which had been hit by a car, in the late fall. An officer had shot it with a .40 caliber, in the neck, to put it out of its misery. The .40 caliber hollow point was not sufficient, and a 12 gauge slug was used to finish the job. When the taxidermist skinned out the bear, they found the expanded .40 caliber lodged in the bears neck. It had not penetrated to the spinal column or entered the chest cavity. In a test by luckygunner.com, the HST .45 cartridge had one of the most aggressive expansion and the lowest velocities, of self defense .45 rounds.

Greg says he had considered bringing his Glock 29 10 mm instead of the Kimber .45, but he was not expecting to have to shoot a bear. He had left the Glock and took the Kimber. He thinks .45 full metal jacketed ball ammunition would likely have been sufficient to take down the bear.

First of all, congratulations to Dean for more great reporting on bear attacks.  Second, take FMJ ammunition if you expect to come into contact with a large predator.  Penetration is the key.  Hollow point ammunition is your enemy in this encounter.  When I expect to be in this position, I carry 450 SMC 230 gr. to push 1120 FPS, always FMJ ammunition for large predators.  Always.

But stay tuned, the best (or worst) part of this report comes up.

Greg was not cited for shooting the bear. He was cited for reckless endangerment and unlawful discharge of a firearm.

The cops would rather he have perished being eaten to death by a 400 pound predator than actually discharged a firearm in self defense.

God help us.  It’s come to this.  The cops actually filed charges against him.

Randall Brackins is the chief of police in Gatlinburg.  Like all good cowards, he has no email.  Take note.  This is not the first (or tenth) time I’ve said this.  If you are on the public dollar and have no contact email, you are a coward.

Hey Randall, I have an email address.  You can contact me at any time.  You, sir, are a coward for not supplying the same thing.

News from Alaska.

Troopers received a report at about 7 p.m. that a moose hunter, who was with another hunter, was attacked by a bear.

“Reportedly the two hunters surprised a sow brown bear with two cubs,” troopers wrote. “The sow attacked one of the hunters causing serious injuries.”

According to AST, the second hunter shot the adult female bear and ended the attack. The hunters then evacuated to a cabin and the injured hunter was flown by helicopter to an Anchorage hospital for treatment.

The report doesn’t say with what gun or caliber the bear was shot.  Next up, news from Canada.

A black bear killed a Minnesota woman on a secluded island in Canadian waters in an attack that experts call extremely rare.

Catherine Sweatt-Mueller, 62, of Maple Plain, was staying with her parents in a remote cabin on Red Pine Island in Rainy Lake when she was killed, Ontario Provincial Police said.

Police Constable Jim Davis said Sweatt-Mueller went outside Sunday evening when she heard her two dogs barking, but that she never returned, the Star Tribune reported.

The dogs, one of them injured, returned to the cabin. Her parents, who are in their 80s, also were on the island and her mother called police, Davis said. Officers found a bear standing over Sweatt-Mueller’s body and shot the animal.

[ … ]

Minnesota wildlife biologist Andy Tri says a predatory attack by a black bear is “beyond extremely rare.”

Remember that.  “Beyond extremely rare.”  Beyond, mind you.  Whatever that means.

Perhaps it’s so beyond extremely rare we could persuade Canadian law enforcement to turn in their weapons.  Or perhaps she should have had means of self defense, and state law be damned.

By way of update, recall that I linked Dean Weingarten’s research work Pistols Or Handguns 95% Effective When Used To Defend Against Bear Attacks, 63 Cases.

Dean has expanded and updated his work and it now includes 73 cases.  He can now add the case from Alaska, which will make it 74.  It would be good to know the weapon and caliber used.

Grok the right lesson here.  It isn’t that bear attacks, whether brown or black, are that rare.  It’s that people who successfully live through such attacks carry means of self defense.

News from Idaho:

When various far-left ecology and animal rights groups such as the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, submitted a petition, calling for the manditory carry of bear spray by hunters, it made national news. The petition was submitted to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission and others. The petition claimed that “Studies show that bear spray is far more effective than firearms.”

That claim is not correct.

The petition was written about in several Idaho outlets, and nationally.

The Commission turned down the request that the carry of bear spray by hunters be mandatory.  From lmtribune.com:

The commission turned down a request from environmental groups that it create a rule that would require hunters in grizzly bear habitat near Yellowstone National Park to carry bear spray. Commissioners said the rule would be overbearing and difficult to enforce, and agreed with agency officials who said education about recreating in grizzly bear country would be more effective.[ … ]

Bear Spray Hoax: IFGD Betrays Hunters

I’m pleased the Commission recommends denying a petition that would require hunters in grizzly country to carry bear spray. But the petition is not being denied for the right reason: When a grizzly charges a hunter with a rifle after a classic surprise encounter at close range, bear spray will not keep a hunter safe. IDFG must prepare hunters to use an adequate rifle quickly and effectively.

In 1991, a Hunter/Grizzly Bear Interactions Task Team (that included U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen) told the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee that bear spray has “minimal usefulness in trail encounters with bears at close range due to the difficulty of effective use.”

Bob Wharff, executive director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that bear “spray isn’t the answer for every encounter, especially when it requires hunters to drop their guns when there’s little time to react. You’re talking milliseconds. It’s illogical that you’re going to set your gun down and get your pepper spray.”

Trina Jo Bradley, vice-president of the Marias River Livestock Association, said “Let’s just think about how we carry ourselves when we’re hunting. I carry a large caliber rifle in my hands, usually with a bullet in the chamber and the safety on. I can easily raise my rifle and fire if I see the game I am hunting, or if a bear attacks. Why in the world would I put down the firearm that I’ve used over and over to grab a can of bear spray?

It’s clear a hunter carrying a rifle cannot use bear spray in a safe or timely manner during a surprise encounter with a grizzly. IDFG and other agencies acknowledged this in 1991. But on September 1, 1999, these agencies did an about face on bear spray when U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service news release announced: “Outfitters And Guides Develop Safety Class To Prevent Bear Attacks.”

The news release said, “During the past year, over 200 outfitters and guides in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado have been trained to safely share the backcountry with bears.”

Were the outfitters and guides taught to use an adequate firearm effectively? No. “Course presenters discourage the use of firearms to mitigate bear attacks, because the practice has resulted in much greater frequency and severity of injuries to people involved [than bear spray]. The reliability and safety of pepper spray over other methods of deterrence has also been promoted by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.”

No data or references were provided to substantiate this claim. Nevertheless, these agencies adopted a de facto policy of discouraging firearm use, and promoting bear spray. The results have been disastrous. As the environmentalists’ bear spray petition notes, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team found that “54% of all injuries inflicted on humans by grizzly bears [in the Yellowstone region] involved hunters.”

In response to the environmentalists’ petition, Toby Broudreau said, “the Department already has a Bear Education Program within grizzly range in Idaho. That program helps inform hunters on bear spray use and benefits.”

That program does not teach hunters how to use bear spray with each of the six field carries for long guns. That program does not provide hunters with accurate, meaningful information about bear spray and firearms research. If you keep hyping bear spray—and use that as an excuse for not teaching hunters how to use an adequate rifle quickly for self-defense—you guarantee the carnage inflicted on hunters since 1999 will continue.

A 2008 study on the Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska said, “In 96% (69 of 72) of bear spray incidents, the person’s activity at the time of was use reported. The largest category involved hikers (35%), followed by persons engaged in bear management activities (30%), people at their home or cabin (15%), campers in their tents (9%), people working on various jobs outdoors (4%), sport fishers (4%), a hunter stalking a wounded bear (1%), and a photographer (1%).”

Given that the purpose of stalking a wounded bear is to kill it, non-lethal bear spray was the wrong tool for the job. The study did not provide additional information about this mysterious incident. A 1998 bear spray study did not provide any information about the activity of people who used bear spray. So research tells us hunters carrying a rifle don’t use bear spray, and common sense tells us why: Hunters can’t use bear spray because they’re already carrying a rifle.

Bear spray advocates focus on the overall success rate from Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska: 3 people were injured during 75 incidents. Of 175 people present during 72 incidents, just 3 were injured. Bear spray advocates never inform hunters that 3 of 9 people who sprayed charging grizzly bears were injured.

Bear spray advocates have repeatedly made the indefensible claim that research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm. One, they’re claiming that research on bear spray use by non-hunters (who are not carrying a firearm) proves hunters (who are carrying a firearm) should use bear spray. That does not make sense.

Two, there have been two interrelated studies on bear spray, and two studies on guns vs. bears. Bear spray advocates are really saying, if you compare the results of one bear spray study to the results of one dissimilar study on guns, bear spray wins. But Field Use of Capsicum Spray As a Bear Deterrent/Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska used different methodologies than Efficacy of Firearms For Bear Deterrence in Alaska. It is unethical to compare the two studies, because of the different dynamics involved.

In addition, you’ve got to be totally unprincipled to pretend a 1999 study on the Characteristics of Nonsport Mortalities to Brown and Black Bears and Human Injuries from Bears in Alaska does not exist. After reviewing 1,036 incidents from 1986 to 1996 when people killed bears in defense of life or property (DLP), the authors of the 1999 study wrote, “Most of the persons shooting brown bears or black bears in DLP circumstances indicated that no human injury occurred (98.5% for brown bears and 99.2% for black bears).”

Bear spray advocates deny the existence of the 1999 study because it does not advance their cause. “Research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm” is not a factual statement based on research; it’s a baseless propaganda slogan. To provide for the safety of big-game hunters in grizzly country, IDFG must teach hunters how to use an adequate firearm quickly and effectively.

This report dovetails nicely with the analysis conducted by Dean Weingarten.  It’s nice to see some sanity from Idaho.  It’s also nice to see the human-hating, creation-worshipping environmentalists put in their place.

Dean Weingarten:

These are all the cases I and associates have found where both bear spray and firearms were used. Tom Sommers is the only case where the firearms were of uncertain efficacy. The bear was moving away when the single shot was fired; Sommers was blinded by bear spray and blood. There are cases where only bear spray was used when firearms were present. There are cases where only firearms were used when bear spray was present.  Those cases are not included in this article.

This is a good followup to his piece on Pistols or Handguns 95% Effective When Used to Defend Against Bear Attacks, 63 Cases.

I would never say not to carry bear spray.  I just wouldn’t use it myself.  And I would never be caught in the bush without a gun.

Somewhat amusingly (and I missed this when it came out), Wes Siler, who was once of the school of thought that bear spray is most effective against bears, now carries guns in the bush when he might be around a bear.  The dispositive and determinative element?  Funny you should ask.  ” … the salubrious effect of moving into grizzly bear territory in Bozeman, Montana.”

Just yesterday, this instance of a bear attack thwarted by bear spray occurred in Montana.

Dean Weingarten at Ammoland.

In January 2018, I published some original research on the efficacy of pistols in stopping bear attacks. It started with this observation, on the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com:

“Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.”

OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard.

I never received a response. I believe the claim was made in good faith. There has been much conjecture about the lack of efficacy of pistols for defense against bears. A little searching will find a plethora of fantasy, fiction, mythology, and electrons sprayed about the supposed lack.

In the original article, there were 37 instances of bear attacks where people attempted to defend themselves or others from a bear or bears, with a pistol.

Of the 37 attacks, there was only one failure, giving a success rate of 97%.

The criteria for inclusion in this study is a pistol had to be fired to defend against a bear or bears. If a pistol was not fired, the incident was not included. If the use of the pistol stopped the attack, it was a success whether the bear was killed immediately, or left the scene, as long as it stopped attacking.

All methods of defense against bears have similar problems of access. A handgun or bear spray in a pack, or a rifle slung over the shoulder without a round in the chamber, should not be counted as a use of the method to defend against bears.  All of the methods can be carried for easy access. It is not a fault of the method if the user did not have them available for use, or if the attack was too quick to allow use.

I and colleagues have searched for instances where  pistols were used to defend against bears.  By the time of the original article I and my associates found 37 instances which were fairly easily confirmed.

Our renewed efforts have found another 26 instances. The earliest happened in 1936, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present.  The ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased over the years. In addition to the pistol defenses, there are two new instances where pistols were used in combination with rifles, one where a pistol was used on an aggressive bear hit by a vehicle, two examples where pistols were present but not used, one indeterminate case, and two examples of unconfirmed incidents.

Both bear and human populations have increased.  Reliable and powerful pistols have become more popular, legal, and commonly carried.

The 63 cases include three that meet the criteria for failure. That translates to a success rate of 95%. You need not rely on my judgement or that of my colleagues. Read of the successes and failures for yourself. Make your own judgements. Some links may not work. Sources on the Internet often go dead after a few years.

What a great article and stellar research.  Make sure to go look at his data.  It includes cartridges all the way from .22LR to the big bore rounds.

In Western North Carolina:

A Haywood County man says he battled a bear outside his home and he has the scrapes and bruises to prove it, WLOS reported.

Sonny Pumphrey was in his driveway Tuesday afternoon when he says a mother bear and her two cubs showed up. He says the cubs ran off but the mother bear reared up and attacked him.

“She made a charging dead run at me. That sucker was eyeball to eyeball to me,” he said.

Pumphrey says he punched the bear in the nose, but then she dropped down and bit his hip.

She kind of shook me a little bit, and I’m still … I’m hitting her steady on the top of the head just as hard as I could swing, man, for dear life,” he said. “I just continue pounding and pounding and pounding and she’s continuing trying to bite me. And like I said … she got a hold of me and then shook me a little bit, then she let go and she took a swat at me. And when she took a swat at me she knocked me about 8 feet over on the concrete.”

Sonny’s wife Betty heard the screams and rushed to his aid along with their little Yorkie, stunned at the sight of a large black bear in their driveway.

“I saw her stand up and rear her paw back and all I seen (sic) was a mouthful of teeth,” she said. “And I just knew he was going to be gone.”

This happened near Waynesville.

WAYNESVILLE – A Haywood County man says he punched a mother black bear in the nose after she came toward him at his home off Liberty Church Road.

Sonny Pumphrey, 78, was working in his driveway Tuesday afternoon when he said he looked up and found himself eye to eye with a black bear, according to a post on his Facebook page.

I’ve hiked and backpacked near this area many times.  Honestly, I don’t think I’d be working anywhere around there, even in my own driveway, without carrying a legitimate self defense weapon.

I’m glad he survived, but punching a bear in the nose is not a viable strategy.

NBC:

Here’s a new Rocky matchup for you: It’s Rocky the dog versus the bear!

Pictures snapped by the dog’s owner show the tense moments between a pet and the wild animal in Wolcott.

Animal control says they’ve never seen anything like it in town until now.

“Rocky tackled the bear. The bear was on his back, paws up and Rocky was on top of him,” Wolcott resident Laura Canby explained.

Her 60-pound pit bull named Rocky is nursing some wounds after taking on a several hundred pound black bear.

“I was very scared. He wasn’t listening and coming back. He was too busy protecting me and the girls,” Canby said.

Canby said it all began when she heard the garbage cans bang outside her home yesterday. As she walked out all of a sudden Rocky darted through the yard after a nearby bear, just as the school bus arrived to drop off Canby’s older daughter.

“I freaked out and grabbed a shovel and started yelling at the school bus driver to keep the baby on the bus, don’t let her off,” Canby said.

That driver also called animal control.

While the bear could have won the fight if it had gone long term, it looks as if the bear decided it didn’t want to tangle with that dog any more.  No meal from a trash can is worth that.

Buckrail:

WYOMING – A backpacker was injured after a surprise encounter with two bears resulted in his being flown to an area hospital where he is receiving medical treatment.

Park County Sheriff’s Office notified Wyoming Game and Fish Department Sunday that a man had been injured by a bear while backpacking in the Beartooth Mountains near the Wyoming-Montana border. The injured male was flown by helicopter to an area hospital where he is receiving treatment.

Upon notification, Game and Fish immediately responded to the area to provide assistance to the victim and other party members. WGFD began an investigation on the attack that included interviews with the victim and members of his party.

The investigation is ongoing—WGFD personnel are still on-scene gathering further details today—but based on the initial investigation, it appears to be a surprise encounter between the individual and two bears.

The injured man is described only as an out-of-state recreationist. He was backpacking with three other people on the Shoshone National Forest near Granite Lake. The victim was apparently hiking ahead of the group when he encountered two bears at close range. The encounter happened too suddenly for him to deploy bear spray he was carrying.

Here is an update.  Most encounters like this are going to be “surprise encounters at close range.”  Be prepared.  Carry guns, easily accessible.  Forget about deploying spray.

In the Tetons, there is this worse outcome.

Two hunters were involved in a bear attack Friday, September 14, in the Teton Wilderness while field dressing an elk near Terrace Mountain, approximately 5.8 miles northeast of the Turpin Meadow Trailhead.

Florida resident Corey Chubon shot an elk during a guided bow hunt late Thursday afternoon. He and his guide, Mark Uptain of Martin Outfitters, were unable to locate the wounded animal before nightfall. The pair returned Friday morning to locate and remove the elk. They found the undisturbed carcass in the early afternoon and were preparing to pack out the elk when they were aggressively charged by two large bears.

Chubon was able to run to his pack a few yards away and retrieve a pistol but was unable to safely fire a shot at the bear that had pounced upon Uptain. The attacking bear then spun, charged Chubon, grabbed his foot and dragged him to the ground. He sustained injuries to his leg, chest, and arm, but was able to throw the gun to Uptain and get loose before running from the scene to phone for help.

[ … ]

An interagency helicopter was dispatched to the scene to assist with transport of the injured hunters. Chubon was taken to St. John’s Medical Center for treatment to his wounds. Search and Rescue personnel were unable to locate Uptain before the search was suspended for the evening.

What a shame he didn’t have a pistol on his belt.

Charlotte Observer, news from Atlanta.

A Georgia woman screamed in fright as a bear climbed through an open window and into her minivan, tore up a child seat and ate her lunch.

“A bear beat me to my lunch today and is now hanging out in my van for over an hour and I have set the alarm off multiple times!” Carrie Watts posted on Facebook with her video of the bear.

Watts was working as a caretaker in a home Tuesday on Lake Burton, in the northeastern corner of the state, when she looked outside as the large black bear munched away., Atlanta Fox affiliate WAGA-TV reported.

The bear ate her sandwich, chips and cookie, Watts told WSB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Atlanta.

“I panicked. I started screaming,” she told WSB-TV.

She set her minivan’s alarm off multiple times to no avail, Watts posted on Facebook. The bear stayed in the vehicle for an hour before leaving, she posted.

I don’t think a car alarm is going to do the trick dear.  In other news of Coywolves, they are where you might least expect them.

A coyote has been terrorizing two East Bay neighborhoods, killing at least four dogs and injuring several others in people’s backyards in the past month.

One of the attacks happened last week in Danville when a coyote leaped a six-foot high fence of a home and went after two dogs who lived there. Though the dogs survived, other pets were not so fortunate.

Nine-year-old Lucy is recovering from surgery after a coyote attacked her in her own Alamo backyard on July 6. Kent Molinaro says he was in shock when he looked out the window and saw his Jack Russell Terrier.

“I see a coyote with Lucy in his mouth,” Molinaro said.

[ … ]

“All of a sudden he made a funny bark and I saw one of the two dogs being carried to the back fence of the yard,” said Danville resident Dave Bruce.

As the dog was being attacked, another pet nipped at the coyote until he dropped him.

And much farther to the East.

Police in Burlington, Massachusetts, are reminding residents to be vigilant after a coyote possibly attacked a dog on Thursday night.

Authorities said a Winn Street resident reported that a wild animal, potentially a coyote, came into her backyard at about 8 p.m. and grabbed her 9 pound Maltese, pulling it into the woods.

Responding officers searched the perimeter of the woods but were unable to locate the dog.

“This was a very unfortunate situation where a resident lost her beloved pet,” Burlington Police Chief Michael Kent said.

[ … ]

To prevent those attacks, police recommend the following tips:

• Keep pets on leashes at all times if outdoors
• Do not approach, feed, pet, or try to interact with wildlife
• Don’t hesitate to scare or threaten wild animals with loud noises or bright lights

Hey, does a .45 ACP count as a loud noise?

I guess the moral of the story is that a bear just doesn’t give a shit about anything.  A Coywolf, only a little bit.

Global News:

A Bella Coola man is recovering in Vancouver General Hospital after he was attacked by a sow — or female — grizzly bear.

Jordan Carbery said he spotted some movement outside his home sometime after 5 a.m on Tuesday. He went outside to investigate and saw some cubs in a cherry tree.

One of the cubs fell out of the tree, which was near the entrance of his home. That caught the attention of the mama bear.

“I looked over to see a sow grizzly bear looking right at me and heading straight for me,” he said.

He tried to run back to the house.

“Suddenly I was just run over,” he said. “It felt like two football players tackling me.”

Carbery found himself on the ground and “next thing I realize is that the bear had my head in its mouth and was picking me up.”

“My scalp tore and it dropped me,” he said.

The bear grabbed him again, he said, and let him go.

He tried to fend off the bear by kicking at it. “I kicked her in the face three times at least,” Carbery recalled, “and then I tried to hit her in the face in the snout. She was like a prize boxer. She was so fast.”

Carbery managed to create enough separation between him and the sow to make his way into the house.

Since he was in an area with no cellphone coverage, he had to drive himself to hospital.

As he ran out his to his car, the bear charged at him again.

Good Lord.

Sir.  I don’t mean to pile on when you’re in such pain, but why did you leave home without a gun?  The first time, and the second time?

Why, oh why?