Rampaging grizzly bear attacks schoolchildren and teacher on Canada hike leaving at least 11 injured with two in critical condition [More]
You might ask what kind of teachers would knowingly expose their charges to lethal threats while deliberately having no means of protecting them, and the answer is most of them.
[Via bondmen]
“Rampaging grizzly bear …”
I rather doubt it.
Grizzlies have only one response to things it sees as interlopers in their territory: to attack. My understanding is that the only animal they back away from is the wolverine. That simplistic survival strategy has served the grizzly well for millions of years, until white explorers with firearms entered the scene. They still wade into a fight with an armed human, but mostly lose. That’s perhaps the prime reason why a successful apex predator is now in decline across all of its former range.
People with any sense go into grizzly country prepared for the possibility of encountering a bear, and having the bear go off on them. As for those who unwisely go unprepared, well, as a former supervisor used to say: “Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you.”
Backwoods advice: be more aware when you observe bear scat that reeks of capsaicin and contains bells.