Bears, bears everywhere

Bears, bears everywhere

August 30, 2001

Division of Wildlife Officer Cary Carron checks on a black bear cub inside a cage at the DOW’s office on Sunday. The young bear was trapped, tranquilized and tagged on Sunday and brought in to be relocated. If the bear gets into trouble again, it will be euthanized. Division of Wildlife officials are frustrated with the number of bear-human encounters this summer.

By Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

A Cortez bow-hunter became the hunted during a close encounter with a large black bear near the trailhead at Stoner Creek Monday evening.

Jim Turner was crouched in a patch of tall grass bow-hunting for elk when he heard a noise he thought was a deer that had passed by him a short time earlier.

"I stood up and that bear was 18 yards from me," Turner said. "I gave it a loud ‘huff’ — trying to get its attention so it would scare off, but as soon as it heard me, it stood up."

Turner said the bear weighed at least 300 pounds and was looking at him for its next dinner.

"He was a huge bear. He was thin — not a fat bear — but a big old black bear with a brown nose and lots of teeth."

The bear dropped to all fours and charged straight towards Turner but halted five feet in front of him, snarling and growling as he sized up the hunter.

"He had his head turned sideways, clicking his teeth at me," he explained. "I stepped back over the log I was sitting on and the bear charged me again, so I swatted at it with my bow when he was about 2 1/2 feet from me." The bear wheeled around as if to retreat but then caught the scent of the hunter’s backpack.

"He walked back up and smelled my pack and I was still screaming bloody murder at him, trying to make myself look as tall and big as I could," he said. "There for a while I didn’t know if I’d made the right decision but I realized right away I was not going to be able to outrun this bear."

But to Turner’s relief, the bear turned and lumbered off. " When he left, I picked up my pack and I was out of there," he said emphatically. "That was a pretty frightening experience. If ever I was going to have a heart attack it would have been then — I thought I was going to be his dinner. I say, ‘Hunters, beware of bears!’"

In Durango last week, a man shot and wounded a bear that he said had charged him while hiking near town. The man was reportedly preparing for archery season by hiking up and down the hills behind his house when he encountered the black bear.

Like Turner, the man attempted to scare the bear off by making loud noise, but when the large animal charged him, he drew back his bow and shot it at close range. The bear was hit with an arrow in the shoulder and was later destroyed by the Division of Wildlife.

Following an investigation, wildlife officers decided not to pursue charges for the shooting because it was done in self-defense.

Dixie Simmons, an employee with the DOW, said Turner handled his encounter with courage and by the book.

She said the bigger a person appears and the better he stands his ground, the better the outcome.

"They’re not stupid: They’re not going to attack something they think is bigger than them," Simmons said of bears.

And when a bear stands up on its hind feet, Simmons said the action is often misinterpreted as aggressive.

"They have very poor eyesight but they have very good smell, so they’re trying to put their nose up in an area to figure out what you are," she explained.

Simmons said people who come face to face with a bear should not run but should avoid eye contact; make loud noise; make yourself as big as possible; and be sure the bear has an escape route.

"You can raise your coat up and it makes you appear larger. Of course, this is easier said than done if you’re 20 feet away from them," she acknowledged. "It’s just trying not to show fear to them, which is really hard to do."

Simmons said it is OK to back away slowly in order to give the bear an opening to leave.

"Try backing off slowly so they can run away because they usually just want to get away from you as much as you want to get away from them. It’s very seldom that a bear is aggressive unless somebody has hurt it."

Simmons said the late freeze in June diminished the bears’ usual food sources and has caused them to go in search of other means to satisfy their hunger. Usually, though, the bears eat trash left outside homes or unconcealed food at campsites — not people.

"Human scent means easy food," she said.

Turner said he has encountered bears many times in the past but said that this year their hunger has superseded their instincts to steer clear of humans.

"Normally, like last year, when those bears are full, they scare off a little bit better," Turner said.

"But I think these bears are probably looking for something to eat and they don’t care what it is. I’ve had some occasions where bears would charge at you but they generally stay off 15 or 20 yards. They didn’t come right up to you like this bear did. This bear was right up on top of me."

Turner noted that although both he and the bear escaped the incident without injury, had it been bear season the outcome might have been different.

"I didn’t have a bear tag, and at that time I don’t know if I could have held my composure enough to shoot him anyway. I was just glad to see him leave," Turner said. "Bear season doesn’t open until Sept. 2, but when it becomes the 2nd, I’m going back hunting a bear. I know where a big one is."