Bear attack in Virginia
Not a hiker not near the AT
Did I miss that there was some sort of treaty made with the bears that they have agreed not to bother hikers near the AT?
Originally Posted by moldy
Thats why I put it in the "general" forum.....
Yes, it was made back in 1967 but only was only rattified by bears in the Roanoake area. A similar treaty in Connecticut was attempted back in 2011, but failed to garner the required number of signatures prior to hibernation.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
OMG: That article just continues to perpetuate facilities of black bears.
Unless they are being directly threaten, it shouldn't matter because black mama bear knows the cubs will climb a tree to escape danger.officials are unsure whether there were any cubs nearby
WHAT???I think she is an avid park-goer and she must have known to stay quiet and not do anything during the attack.
That is completely contrary to modern advice agencies such as GSMNP try to teach the public for years.
You don't play dead with a black bear attack, you fight back.
I caught that well, my guess is that comment was simply the reporter mixing up the words "encounter"
and "attack"
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
They really should stop calling them attacks.. they're "attempted ingestions"
...attempted pic-a-nic snatchins.
Doesn't make sense either... "stay quiet" is NOT a part of the instructions for "What Do I Do If I See A Bear?".
The writer who did the piece is the local crime reporter, so it's not surprising that she didn't understand the correct behavior for a bear encounter. We should actually all be happy that this happens so rarely that nobody in the newspaper business knows much about it. I wonder how big her dogs were? Little yap dogs might look like a snack to a bear...
"Waning Gibbous" would be a great trail name.
That advice is ONLY because it assumes the bear is predatory, and that is reason it attacked. Not bad advice...because black bears rarely attack otherwise.
Rarely, not never.
Theres documented cases where doing "wrong" thing and playing dead....worked with a black bear. While fighting back...didnt. If plan A dont work, might as well give plan B a shot...
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 09-20-2017 at 14:27.
I remember when reporters actually checked facts before publishing.
You're THAT old???!!!
"It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how." ---Dr. Seuss
What mistake did she make in her article? She wrote about the Department of Conservation's recommended behavior in the event of a bear encounter.
You are right that the journalist didn't make the error. The journalist provides the following quote from Shannon Johnson, public communications and marketing director for the Va Department of Conservation and Recreation.
“I think she is an avid park-goer and she must have known to stay quiet and not do anything during the attack. The bear fled the scene and she was able to get away.”
The VA DGIF (see link at bottom of article) actually recommends this.
- In the unlikely event that a black bear attacks you, fight back. Black bears have been driven away with rocks, sticks and even bare hands.
So, unless the park's public communications and marketing director was misquoted, it was the public communication director that made the error.
Last edited by gpburdelljr; 09-20-2017 at 17:50.
"The bear fled the scene..." Definitely a crime reporter.
i can say in our newsroom----we do our absolutely best at checking facts....
do some things get misreported?
of course----as we are only humans..........every profession has it's errors...
we try to keep our to a minimum........
Or attempted treaty negotiations.
The latest news update says there was no bear involved, only a large porcupine. The woman was in fact Mr. George Brown and the attack occurred in Georgia.
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