Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Do grizzly Bears EAT humans??

Hey guys,

I heard a rumour that grizzly bears won't eat you after they kill you. Apparently when they kill humans, it's because you're on their territory - not because they're hungry and want a meal..

And I was told that when a black bear stalks you, it's because they ARE hungry and they WILL eat you.

Is all this true?

Cheers guys,

Russ.

I'd ask this guy..

Ask Timothy Treadwell ( I think that was his name)

Meanwhile, searchers excavating the bear's cache back in camp discover Amie Huguenard, who's arm and fingers had been exposed to the daylight when investigators first entered the camp. Appearing as though she were peacefully asleep except that her body, like Tim's, had been mostly eaten by the bear. (Ellis 2003, pg 5)

http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/Tim_Treadwell.html

David

Very basically yes. It is true.


That said, there are exceptions to every rule and I can think of at least three right here in Montana of grizzlies eating folks.
It is a general rule, there are exceptions,and if you are involved, you'll not really be thinking about the statistics.

They will eat humans, except clowns (of course).

So if I dress like John Wayne Gacy and go hunting, I should be OK?

Here's one documented incident:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/chichagof-island-alaska-bear-attack_n_1968903.html

So, yeah its rare but does happen.

Yep, Ingwe has it right, generally.

Another way to put it is that if a black bears kills you he will almost always eat you, and if a grizzly kills you, there is a fairly good chance he won't eat you.

Whether the bear eats you is not recommended as a reliable way to tell which kind of bear it is.

Yes if extremely hungry. Black bears on the other hand find Canadians to be very tasty. I believe politically correct expert phrase for that behavior is aggressive predatory black bear attacks.

What's the backstory there?

IIRC, the guy was killed in a Canadian park about 10 yrs ago.



99 of 100 bears polled say clowns taste funny. I think JWG would fall in the 1% that don't taste funny.



Here's one I recalled from a few years back down here in SE AK:

Hunter Slain, Partly Devoured by Grizzly
November 08, 1988|United Press International

SITKA, Alaska � A 700-pound grizzly bear killed a hunter and devoured part of his body but was tracked down and destroyed the next day, state officials said Monday.

Harley Sievenpiper Jr., 40, of Juneau, was attacked Friday after he left two hunting companions on Baranof Island in southeast Alaska. Rollin Young, an Alaska Fish and Wildlife Protection officer, said Sievenpiper may have attracted the bear inadvertently while using a deer call.

A six-man search party from Sitka and Port Alexander found the mature grizzly with Sievenpiper's partly devoured remains Saturday. The animal charged and was shot to death, Young said."

You need to have your guard on when calling deer on the ABC Islands. Alway check your backside. I've called a few in. Also why I don't do a 223 AI for deer.

A Grizzly killed and ate 70 pounds of a camper that was staying in a tent at Rainbow Point Campground near West Yellowstone, MT in the 1980's. This was just a short walk through the woods from our cabin, we were there the night it happened.

They captured the bear, killed him and did an autopsy to determine what made the bear do such a thing.

I am no coroner or biologist, but it didn't take me long to determine that if a bear ate 70 pounds of you, he wasn't marking his territory...

Just cuz . . .

I think you can find the answer in Treadwell's newest book
"Bears - an Insiders View "

Now that's funny ......

If memory serves, there was a couple camping in the Brooks Range that were eaten by a grizzly a few years ago.

Hmm, guess I was correct, but almost 10 years ago:

http://www.akfatal.net/Huffman%2006-25-05.htm

Sometimes grizzlies do eat humans, this one happened in DNP about 2 years ago.

Grizzly attack

Looks like they were attacked/killed but not eaten.

The 300-pound bear attacked the campers in their sleeping bags and tore at their bodies but did not devour them, officials said.

[quote=458Win]I think you can find the answer in Treadwell's newest book
"Bears - an Insiders View " [/quote

Are stupid humans, like Treadwell, more appetizing for Bears?

Thanks for all the replies guys.
I read in an old Elmer Keith article that says (according to him) that Grizzlies don't eat people but black bears do, but it seems that Grizzlies do eat people from time to time.
It makes me glad that we have no bears in Australia. We have sharks, snakes, spiders, crocodiles, dingoes, wild dogs, buffalo, scrub Bulls, jellyfish and scorpions... but no bears!

I'll take our bears over your snakes, spiders, crocs, sharks et al.

Funny how the dangers you know aren't as scary as the one's you don't know.

I think this usually comes up because of the "experts" recommendations on what to do if you are attacked by a bear.

The recommendation for a grizzly attack is to play dead. Because the bear is probably attacking you to defend cubs, food, space, etc. If you play dead the bear may decide you are no longer a threat.

For a black bear attack the recommendation is to fight back because it is probably a predatory attack and playing dead doesn't help that.

I'm not saying these are right or wrong just relaying what I've heard.

LMAO!


I imagine eating humans is a bit like eating bears too. The best ones are the vegetarians.

Really though, what's the difference?

If you're dead, you're dead...

There a probably not many of you around that are familiar with the old "Herter's Guide Manual" but it explains in detail a sure fire way of how to stop a mauling from bears, lions and tigers.
It says it takes a lot of courage but all one has to do is to spit in the animals mouth !!!

and the rest of the book is filled with other just as interesting and useful information.

And YOU determined this was useful (or not) how?



I always liked the titles of his other books, "How to Live with a Bitch" comes to mind.

You left out the Blue-ringed octopus. Deadly little buggers but usually only bite you if you take them out of the water.

I had that book by George Herter and a few more, lent them to my Uncle and have not seen them since, He had a view on things that was well interesting to say the least, What he had to say about Dry Martinis stuck with me "An Alcoholic Drink for Alcoholics" its been 43 years! As for the bears, I will take them any day over what crawls around in Australia!

I keep waiting and wanting to read "Local Man Halts Bear Attack With Grenade".

A seal bomb to the face works wonders.

While initial reaction may have been to defend cubs or carcass pile, bears, both grizz and black, are opportunists, that will devour humans, as recent reports in Wyoming have illustrated.

Exactly!

I am sure the Herters manual has saved a lot of folks from bear maulings because if you are sitting around reading trash you are not likely to be out where the bears are

Bears eat whatever food is available.

Bears eat whatever food is available.

The fact that they might eat it alive at times relates to the original query rather negatively.

I imagine one bite would about do a man in...

Only the really slow ones.

The theory is that blacks attack for food but grizzlies attack to defend cubs or territory. That's the theory and while it might be generally correct, it's nowhere near 100% correct.

...one has NO way of knowing whether the bear in question has read the same books.

IIRC Timothy Treadwell's last recorded words were, "He's eating me!"

They were actually 'I'm getting killed' but that's close enough. Here's an interesting article about him. This is quote from the article to show how really crazy he was.

The troopers weren't all that bright, either. The one who killed the 1st bear did it with a 40 cal handgun. It took 12 shots.



Alaska Bear Attack
Editor's Note: some of the statements in this story may or may not be true, and are meant as parody.

Among the last words Timothy Treadwell uttered to his girlfriend before a bear killed and partially ate both of them were these:

"Get out here. I'm getting killed.''

Alaska State Troopers report that is what they heard on a videotape recovered Monday at the scene of a bear mauling in Katmai National Park and Preserve. The tape was in a camera found near the bear-buried remains of Treadwell, 46, and Huguenard, 37.

The offending bear was apparently destroyed after park rangers descended to investigate.

Troopers spokesman Greg Wilkinson said there are no pictures on the tape, leading troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffle bag or during the dark of night. Treadwell had talked to an associate in Malibu, Calif., by satellite phone around noon Sunday. He mentioned no problems with any bears.

The remains of the Southern Californians who periodically came to Alaska to live intimately with the bears were found the next day. A large but scrawny old bear with bad teeth that a pilot had seen sitting on the brush and dirt pulled over the bodies was shot and killed by National Park Service rangers at the scene after it charged them.

Troopers Wednesday refused requests to release the audiotape, but said it convinced them the two people had been killed by a bear. Speculation about whether a bear had actually done the killing had been fueled by Treadwell's oft-stated but unsubstantiated claim that he spent summers at Katmai to protect the bears from poachers and sport hunters.

"I'm their lifeguard,'' he told a reporter for The Davis (Calif.) Enterprise in 1999. "I'm there to keep the poachers and sport hunters away. I'm much more likely to be killed by an angry sport hunter than a bear.''

The Kaflia Bay area of Alaska's Gulf Coast -- where Treadwell spent most of his time in the state -- has long been closed to sport hunters, and Katmai rangers said there is no history of poachers killing bears in the area.

When bears die, they are usually killed by other brown bears, said park superintendent Deb Liggett, noting that 90 percent of the cubs each year are killed, and often eaten, by other brown bears. Adult bears sometimes kill each other there, too.

In this case, Wilkinson said, troopers are confident a bear was also responsible for killing the Malibu couple. Troopers are also convinced, he added, that the bear seen feeding on their bodies was the bear killed by Park Service rangers. There is no way, however, of knowing whether that bear or another shot by troopers at the scene did the actual killing.

One of the rangers shot the brown bear with his service semi-auto .40-caliber pistol twelve times when the animal charged at them through the dense brush. The bear finally fell only 12 feet from the ranger, as two other rangers stood at the ready with shotguns. "We may have cut that a little thin," one of the other rangers said. [Ed. Note: ya think?!] Troopers and rangers later killed a smaller bear apparently stalking them.

The tape full of screams and rustling sounds details the attack, Wilkinson said, but adds little to explain exactly what happened or why. The tape, he said, lasts about three minutes. Scratching and dragging noises on it have led troopers to believe Treadwell might have been wearing a body mike when the attack began.

After Treadwell calls for help, Wilkinson said, Huguenard can be heard shouting "play dead.'' That is the recommended response to being grabbed by a brown or grizzly bear, but authorities stress the idea of playing dead should be abandoned if the bear continues to press the attack.

On the tape, shortly after the warning to "play dead,'' Wilkinson said, "Huguenard is heard to scream "fight back.'' Treadwell later yells "hit him with a pan,'' Wilkinson said. [Ed. Note: that'll send him running!]

After that, the tape goes dead, as did Treadwell. Because there are no pictures, troopers believe it is most likely the bear came in the night. The tent in which Treadwell and Huguenard had been camping showed no signs of being ripped open by a bear trying to attack people inside, but a friend of Treadwell's said it was common for him to leave the tent in the dark to confront bears that approached his camp. Apparently Treadwell treated bears like local neighbor teenagers with toilet paper rolls in hand.

"His way of operating was to get out of the tent immediately when he heard a bear around,'' Juneau filmmaker Joel Bennett said Wednesday. "He subscribed to the theory that the worst thing you could do was stay in the tent. Obviously the bears thought differently."

Bennett knew the flamboyant Treadwell well. Only two weeks before Treadwell's death they had spent weeks on Kodiak Island working on a Disney film about bears.

"You probably know that I've done three full-length films with him,'' Bennett said. "There's no question he had a remarkable repertoire with bears and had a remarkable ability for them to tolerate him ... (but) just so people don't get the wrong idea, Tim definitely knew there were bears out there that were bad medicine. One apparently thought he would be tasty."

"This incident sounds to me like it had nothing to do with his work during the day to look at bears or photograph bears. It was a campsite situation. I think he was quite an idiot, and paid for it with his life.''

Dozens of scientists, bear guides and outdoor authorities who have spent their lives around Alaska's bruins have criticized Treadwell's daytime activities. The Californian had a seemingly overwhelming need to get close to bears, and may have harbored fetish feelings towards the bears.

"He was a strange dude,'' said Joe Darminio, a former guide at the Newhalen Lodge who used to take bear-viewing tourists to meet Treadwell. "I had a feeling that he would become a meal to one of those bears sooner or later. They are bears, man, what do you expect?" Many of the tourists, Darminio added, recognized Treadwell from television or his book, "Among Grizzlies -- Living with Wild Bears in Alaska.''

Opinions among the tourists were split on whether Treadwell's bear-stalking antics were crazy, but Darminio said there was agreement the blond Californian in the black Carhartt's with the bandana tied around his head like a pirate was entertaining.

It was hard to avoid being shocked or impressed by the fearless way he eased up to within feet of some of the most powerful predators on the continent. During peak bear mating season, Treadwell would often go naked and smear Smucker's� Raspberry Jam over his bare buttocks and taunt the males in the area. Treadwell said he could calm them by talking in his high-pitched sing-song voice and tell from their body language whether they posed any overt sexual threat.

"He really thought he was a beasty version of Dian Fossey in that way,'' Bennett said. "She could have been killed by one swipe of a gorilla at any time. Dian Fossey got close to the gorillas. She touched them. But she never got naked and presented her rear to them, for Christ's sake. Timmy did not encourage other people to do this, but he seriously enjoyed it. He says over and over in his films, 'Do not do this. Do not copy me. I am Lono.' It's obviously not something people should do, but it's something that he did. And I think he really got off on it."

Huguenard was exposed to Treadwell's daring antics at a grizzly bear anal-Smucker's� presentation in Boulder, Colo. A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine with a degree in molecular biology from the University of Colorado in Boulder, she knew trying to get close to brown bears was dangerous, but went along with Treadwell anyway, despite the sexual innuendos.

"It was part of her life,'' sister Kathie Stowell told The Times' newspaper in their old hometown of Valparaiso, Ind. "They had a bear passion and that overrode everything. I have a feeling that the bears had a passion for them too, especially when they enticed them with raspberry jam on their private parts like that."

"She definitely died, according to her, in the most beautiful, pristine place on earth. They were both lunatics and deviants, but at least they died doing what they loved. I am sure God is frowning on the whole thing, though.''

I don't get it. Does that article insinuate Treadwell was letting the males poke him in the rear?

If you've never watched it before, you need to see the Timmy Treadwell spoof video. You will die laffin'

We are well acquainted with the troopers, helicopter pilot and NPS employees who investigated and cleaned up the remains and eventually shot the bear (s). A second bear showed up shortly after the initial boar was killed, probably attracted by the smell of meat, and the rangers killed it as well.
The NPS employee who shot the bear with the 40 cal handgun now carries a .50 S&W in his airplane.
We also keep the Treadwell movie "Grizzly Man" in camp as his footage was well done. But he was a suicidal egomaniac. We also have a copy of the spoof " Grizzly Bear Man" and it is spot on.

Heck, black bears kill & eat people, why wouldn't a grizz?

http://nypost.com/2014/11/25/hiker-took-cell-phone-pictures-of-bear-before-deadly-attack/

For those who haven't seen and and for those who want to see it again.

The only Herter's book I remember well is his "Bull Cook Manuel." When I was about 13 or so I got some wild leeks and made his leak soup. It was darn good. But if Phil says about the spit: I'll take his word.

Now on this grenade suggestion: into which end of the bear would it be best to stuff the grenade? Phil? What say you?

Well FWIW,,,, Here is my Timmy Treadwell Story;
As my memory serves, the date was Sept. 2003, I was doing some Generator over-hauls for Katmai Lodge, up the Branch River, [or Alagnak, if you will] I was in Town, [King-Salmon] waiting for some Parts to come in on Penn-Air. So i was killing some time across the street @ Eddy's Fireplace Inn, ordered a Pizza and a Beer, just minding my own business, and this guy bellyed-up to the bar next me and sat down, started showing me some post card type photos of these Bears, he had names for them, from these two Scrap-Book Photo type albums, at this point, i didn't know anything about Timmy Treadwell, never heard of him before that afternoon. So, he asked if i was interested in buying any of his photos, i wasn't, my Pizza showed-up, i offered him a slice, we started talking alittle bit, he said he was waiting for his girl friend to fly in, the same flight that had my parts on it, well,,,, during our conversation, i told him, IMHO, you are playing a dangerous game of Russian-Roulette with those Bears, It's not a matter of -{If}-, it's just -{WHEN}-, and now we all know -{WHEN}- caught-up with him.
That's my Story, and I'm Sticking to it.

From what I've read black bear attacks are almost never over protection of a kill/of young/personal space but predatory in nature.
Grizzlies might initiate an attack over any the above and sometimes say to themselves,"Hey, I went through all this trouble so might as well eat it."
Young male grizzlies are the most apt grizzly sub set to go into predatory mode upon a encounter.
Bears habituated to garbage, being fed, ect. often are more likely to look at humans as a opportunistic food source.
Playing dead might be a good action to take if you get a grizzly on top of you. Never a good action if it is a black bear.
Bottom line. If you are in bear territory you better have defense of some type on you.

I thought it noteworthy that there are far fewer documented maulings when pepper spray is used to divert an attack vs a firearm!

Also the statement that was made about Treadwell shoulding have stayed in his tent is a mistake. The single best deterent to a predatory attack is direct and aggressive confrontation. Timoth was a weirdo however he understood bear psychology very well.

My guess is in this instance when he was eaten he slipped up and tried the sweet soft scolding tone he often used when he should have came off with immediate aggression.

One slipup and your eaten!

Shod

What hurts and bothers me the most about Treadwell's story, is that he really trusted Mr. Bubbles.

Sorry, total bullschit on the pepper spray... And how do they document a non-event? And then calculate a ratio of saves the in non-event arena?

Spray used at great distance is not proof it worked, at all. Most spray success stories are based on anything but real encounters. In my two personal first-hand experiences neither bear was saved by spray, though both were given chances.

Having spent more than a little time around bears I am not impressed by TT's experience or actions and predicted the result.

Most everything he (Shodd) mentioned doesn't jibe with what I've seen and know about bears either.

A bear that is wary is easily deterred. A bear that is curious or aggressive might just as readily stand it's ground against any form of aggression including sounds much louder than any human is capable of - including magnum handguns burning significant quantities of bear seasoning (110/296).

Perhaps he (Treadwell) might have survived that attack had he stayed in the tent and used bear spray in the enclosed space along with blankets/sleeping bags for his own spray protection, but that is only hindsight thinking which nobody has the opportunity for in those situations. The simplest solution would have been to keep a good rifle and/or revolver nearby and used them as needed.

I'm with Art when it comes to this kind of reporting. I've been very, very close to a whole bunch of bears. Most have ended with everyone walking away, some ended with a skinning job. Can't believe that any of them have been "reported" as stopping a mauling with a firearm--though I can't see how else they could've been classified by anyone keeping records.

I've never sprayed a bear. However, I've used enough pepper spray on two legged victims to know that its efficacy is doubtful in a determined encounter with a man or beast.......

Oh, and as far as TT goes, the outcome was too obvious to be considered a prediction.

Yeah, I got a little carried away!

I am fat and slow. I carry a 454 Casull every where I go. It don't matter.

There's LOTS of things out there that will kill you that no man can outrun. That is why the Lord provided us with .30-06. Only a fool takes a handgun to a bear fight. That said, I do realize the value of a powerful handgun in close.

Damn right he ate part of that guy. I was gulper fishing the morning after that attack on Rainbow Point on the Madison arm of the lake. I was paddling out to fish and a USFS pickup pulled up where I had put in and told me to get out of the area. Never saw a FS guy with a rifle in the truck before so it was pretty obvious something big had gone down. They found the body by drag marks across the main road by the first cross road. I remember that deal pretty well.

I'm a believer in bear spray !

555 gr of wheelweights sprayed in one homemade 50 cal chunk at a time .

If the situation arises .... (and it has)
I will kill every single black, brown, grizzly, polar or panda bear without hesitation
the shoot, shovel and shut up club does not contribute to polls or statistics

have no interest in an insiders study on wether bears crap in the woods