Bears

Experts are rethinking advice on near-bear experiences

Sunday, October 01, 2000
By DRU SEFTON
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

When the grizzly charged, Patricia Van Tighem did what hikers have always been told to do.
First, she scampered up a tree.
The bear batted her down.
Then she lay still on the ground, playing dead. The bear began gnawing on her face, ripping skin and muscle from her skull.
Van Tighem finally did something she wasn’t supposed to do: She reached up and poked the bear in the nose.
The bear retreated.
"Staying still didn’t work," said Van Tighem, whose new book, "The Bear’s Embrace," details the grueling 20-year physical and mental aftermath of the attack on her and her husband. "If I kept playing dead, I would have BEEN dead."
The common advice always has been - and still is - that if you’re threatened by a grizzly, play dead; if you’re threatened by a black bear, fight back. But a summer of attacks involving not only fierce grizzlies but also normally docile black bears has some experts questioning those approaches.
The issue becomes more important as bear populations increase and human-bear conflicts, the term that researchers use for these sometimes violent interactions, become less rare.
In late May, a black bear preyed upon hiker Glenda Ann Bradley about 10 miles outside Gatlinburg, Tenn. It was the first recorded black bear fatality in the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Then, early in July, Canadian biathlete Mary Beth Miller was killed by a black bear outside Quebec City.
After that, human-bear conflicts made news all summer:
Black bears clawed or bit four Boy Scouts in July at the Philmont Scout Ranch in northeastern New Mexico.
In August, two backpackers were charged by a bear of undetermined species in Glacier National Park in Montana. One was bitten on the thighs and hips.
Also in August, a Calgary, Alberta, a man was mauled by a grizzly in the Kananaskis Country of Canada’s Rockies. It was the second incident in 12 hours; those were the first attacks there in 22 years.
In September, attacks have been reported in Clam Falls, Wis.; Hoonah, Alaska; Grand Junction, Colo.; Anchorage; McLeod Lake, British Columbia; and Yellowstone National Park.
"Conflict is increasing all over," said Gary Shelton, who has studied bears for 35 years and written two books considered to be the seminal works on bear aggression. "What’s happening is bear attacks are taking place where they haven’t before, there’s a higher level of fatalities, and there are more deadly attacks by black bears."
Protecting people and their property from bears is a politically sensitive issue. "Bears have become an icon that represent all things bad mankind has done to nature," Shelton said.
New Jersey recently canceled a black-bear hunt after public protest. In the last year officials there have documented 25 bear attacks on livestock and 40 on household pets.
Shelton, who lives in the remote Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia, began his career as a conservationist. He came to think that bears were becoming "overprotected" - that populations were growing too large - so he "shifted gears" to study what people can do to avoid or minimize bear attacks.
According to the North American Bear Society, nearly 800,000 black bears roam across Canada and all but seven American states.
Grizzly numbers are harder to track, as the bears are more elusive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 1,200 grizzlies are spread throughout Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming, and 30,000 live in Alaska. University of Calgary environmental scientist Stephen Herrero, a bear expert, estimates that 60,000 brown bears, the species that includes grizzlies, live throughout North America.
Statistics on bear attacks are difficult to compile. Many happen in remote wilderness and go unreported.
Herrero, author of "Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance," estimated that on average, bears kill three people and seriously injure between five and 15 annually in North America. "Overall the injury rates are very low considering the millions of interactions that occur each year," he added.
But in August, Herrero told the Calgary Herald that the number of bear attacks this year is among the highest since biologists began keeping records 28 years ago. Specific numbers were unavailable.
If people want to learn how to co-exist with bears, "it is incumbent upon us to figure out how they think," said Tom Smith, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska and an expert on bear-human interaction.
Smith is studying grizzly bear responses to smells, sights and sounds associated with human outdoor activities. He travels through the wilderness displaying different colored tent materials and playing voice recordings, noting bear reactions.
Avoidance remains the best defense, yet some people are naive about keeping bears at bay, Smith said.
"Campers put papaya-guava-honey shampoo on their heads and then wonder why bears are paying attention to them," he said. "Come on, people, this is stupid." To a bear, that’s about as inviting as "bacon and egg shampoo" would smell to a hungry hiker, Smith noted.
Much of Smith’s research runs counter to accepted bear-avoidance tactics.
He has discovered that pepper spray, a common deterrent, actually may attract bears if used incorrectly - that is, applied to tents, containers or clothing as opposed to sprayed directly at a bear.
Smith also published a study on the use of "bear bells," which hikers hang from walking sticks, belts or backpacks on the theory that a noisy approach will keep them from catching a bear off guard. He hung a row of the noisy bells on a bush. Over time, 15 grizzly bears wandered past the bells as he rang them; the beasts "didn’t even twitch an ear."
"Some things that are taught as standard safety messages, I think, Why in the world do we do that?’ " he said.
Smith sees this summer’s attacks as an aberration. "The overwhelming majority of bears have no desire to deal with people," he said. However, "there are those Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Kaczynski bears," like the human murderers, that set out to kill.
Shelton, meanwhile, is preparing a paper for the International Bear Association conference next May that details his theory: Black bears, in certain circumstances, will indeed prey on humans.
"There’s going to be a slow, steady increase of predatory black bear attacks that will catch bear managers off guard," he predicted.
Shelton pointed out that because black bears and grizzlies evolved from a common ancestor, a "true predator," each species is capable of predatory attacks. So the common advice to fight a black bear but play dead for a grizzly may not hold true, particularly if the bear has targeted a human as prey.
After conducting in-depth interviews with 40 survivors of attack by bears, both black and grizzly, Shelton now takes "a strong position against playing dead."
"If the bear is deciding if you’re prey, and you play dead, that’s exactly what happens to you," he said. He devotes a chapter in his upcoming book to the topic.
So what is the best way to protect yourself in bear country? Shelton said to carry pepper spray and use it correctly - shoot it directly at the bear, then leave the area immediately, as the bear will be temporarily stunned by the burning sensation.
"Even though the spray success rate runs at about 75 percent, it is a far better strategy than the play dead/fight back’ concept," Shelton said.
©2000 THE PLAIN DEALER.

State Wildlife Board Approves Limited Spring Bear Hunt
Thursday, October 12, 2000
BY TOM WHARTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The Utah Wildlife Board on Wednesday unanimously endorsed a spring bear hunt starting in April 2001.
The hunt will be considered experimental, meaning it will be staged in limited areas and will last from four to six years. After that, its future will be evaluated.
Details of the black bear hunt will be made public in late November. It probably will take place on between four and six of Utah's 22 bear management units. Hunters will be able to use hounds and bait in some areas.
It will mark the first time since 1992 that Utah hunters can legally pursue bears during the spring. Back then, pressure from wildlife groups swayed the board to limit bear hunting to the fall. The groups argued that the spring hunt orphans newborn cubs when mothers are killed.
Bear hunters since have campaigned to reinstate the hunt. Brigham Young University biologist Hal Black argued Wednesday that there is no scientific justification for not having a spring bear hunt. And Don Peay, director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, said banning spring bear hunting to save female bears has been a failure.
He said that since Utah closed its spring bear hunt, the harvest of females has increased by 52 percent and there has been a 49 percent increase in the number of bears killed by government wildlife agents because the animals were killing domestic livestock.
"We told you in 1993 that if you did away with the spring bear hunt you would increase the number of females killed and depredation," said Byron Bateman, a northern Utah hunter. Because male bears emerge from hibernation earlier than females, supporters say a well-timed hunt would target males and protect females and their young.
Spring hunt proponents also argued that hunters who use bait and hounds have a better chance at telling the sex of a bear and can avoid killing females with young.
Those opposed to the spring hunt cited a 1999 survey conducted for the Division of Wildlife Resources showing general public disapproval of bear hunting, baiting and hounding. That drew a retort from hunter John Bair.
"Using public opinion polls is a slap in the face to biologists," he said. "There is no biological reason to not have a spring hunt."
Nonhunters question the wisdom of starting the hunt next spring after a year when drought has deprived many bears of food. The situation is particularly dire in the Book Cliffs region of eastern Utah, a possible place for a spring bear hunt.
"I cannot fathom why the Wildlife Board would even consider a spring hunt or adding hunting units after the tough year the bears have had," Moab resident Katie Juenger wrote in a letter to the board. "Some may not even make it through the winter, and there is no justification for adding to the stress they will face in the spring."
The board received letters opposing the hunt from all over the United States.
"Spring is a critical time for all bears," wrote Renee Snyder of Salt Lake City. "By the time bears emerge from their winter den, they have expended most of their energy reserves and must begin extensive foraging. The disruption of their foraging behavior, as well as the energy spent avoiding hunters, can negatively impact a bear's ability to survive."
In approving an experimental hunt in 2001 with details to be worked out at a later date, the Wildlife Board said the objective of the spring hunts would be to see whether: the number of male bears killed increased; the hunts helped reduce livestock depredation; cub survival was helped by spring hunting; and the harvest of female bears declined.
The board, which met at the Department of Natural Resources building in Salt Lake City, also approved a long-term bear management plan that was the work of a black bear discussion group that included biologists, hunters and nonhunters.
The plan's main objective is to maintain a healthy bear population in existing habitat and expand distribution while considering human safety, economic concerns and other wildlife species.

Photographer Kills Enormous Black Bear
Thursday, October 5, 2000
PETERBOROUGH, Posted 9:40 a.m. EDT October 5, 2000 -- A wildlife photographer believes he was attacked by one of the largest black bears ever recorded in the province.
Denis Stairs, who always carries a shotgun while snapping pictures in the bush, killed the huge animal last Friday. He was in a wooded area behind his home, on Birch View Road, south of Young's Point.
It's believed the bear weighed more than 272 kilograms. He says it had a 100-centimetre neck and the skull the size of a grizzly.
The skull is now being measured to find out if it is a record.
Stairs was not injured in the attack, but his coveralls have a long rip made by one of the bear's razor-sharp, 10-centimetre long claws.

Bear mauls man
Worker was on lookout
By Peter Porco Daily News Reporter
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
A 53-year-old man who had been on bear watch at a federal clean-up site on Kodiak Island over the weekend was mauled by a large grizzly, Alaska State Troopers said.
Charles Brent Hudson of Houston was in Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center on Monday recovering from a laceration to his neck, a broken rib, a crushed thumb and puncture wounds to his shoulder and buttocks, troopers said.
His condition was stable, a nursing supervisor said.
Reached at the hospital, Hudson said he had gotten pretty beat up during an attack Sunday afternoon that lasted all of 30 to 45 seconds. He declined to talk further about the incident.
Hudson, the health and safety officer for Jacob's Engineering, was working as a "bear guard" at an Army Corps of Engineers cleanup site near the east side of Lake Catherine outside the city of Kodiak, troopers said.
The location, about four miles north of the U.S. Coast Guard's Kodiak Air Station, is an old World War II site, Guard spokesman Keith Alholm said.
Besides keeping an eye out for bears, Hudson was looking for silt in the water downstream from the work site, troopers said, and carried no firearm.
Hudson was alone in a wooded area not more than half a mile from other workers on heavy equipment, said Fish and Wildlife Protection Troopers Sgt. Joanna Roop.
"He heard something come up behind him," Roop said. "He thinks the bear was bedded down in the timber and within about 20 feet of where he initially heard him, and the victim tried to run for some dense trees, and the bear came up behind him."
He said the grizzly "ran me down and bowled me over," Roop said.
Hudson curled into a ball on the ground, facedown, with his hands covering his head in the classic play-dead posture sometimes recommended by bear experts. The bear, which he described as a dark boar, rolled him over twice and then ran off, Roop said.
Hudson called for help on his radio and was eventually airlifted to the hospital in a Coast Guard helicopter.
The bear did not return to the area, Roop said. Investigators determined the bear did not stalk Hudson, nor did Hudson have any food on him, she said. The bear apparently had not been wounded in any way. So authorities did not pursue it.

Bear hunter mauled by his potential prey
Frederic man, searching for tracks in cornfield, startled cub, its mother
By Jessica Hansen of the Journal Sentinel staff
September 18, 2000
A northwestern Wisconsin man was recovering from injuries Monday after being attacked by a bear in a Polk County cornfield.
Bear hunter Duane R. Olson, 42, of Frederic was searching for bear tracks in the field when he came across a cub. Olson said he made a loud noise to scare the cub away, which prompted the mother bear to charge him.
The mother bear "came just flying right at me," he said.
"She hit the row I was in, about 10 yards from me. . . . I thought she was going to run right by me," he said. "But she plowed right into me and had me right on my back."
Olson said he escaped serious injury by grabbing the nearly 150-pound black bear by the throat and pushing it off him, but not before the animal bit his leg, scratched his hand and arm, and punctured his abdomen.
"There's two deep gashes in my leg . . . and then two deep puncture wounds on each side of the knee," he said. "It could have been a lot worse. That thing could have killed me in seconds."
Olson, whose leg has swollen to twice its normal size since Thursday's attack, received about 20 stitches, each about a half-inch from the next to allow the wound to drain. He was treated and released from a hospital in St. Croix Falls.
Olson, who said he has hunted bears for 15 years, was scouting the area with friends when he was attacked. He said he was not hunting at the time.
Department of Natural Resources bear biologist Mike Gappa said that although bear attacks are rare, contact between bears and humans is on the rise.
One reason for increased contact may be that Wisconsin simply has more bears than in the past, said Gappa, who studies the animals at the DNR's western regional office in Eau Claire.
Wisconsin is home to about 14,000 American black bears, a population that has more than tripled since the mid-1980s, when the bear population reached such a low level that the hunting season was canceled for several years, according to the DNR.
Another reason for the increase in bear-human encounters is that more people than ever are moving to bear country, Gappa said.
More than three-quarters of the state's bears - one per square mile - live in a nearly 11,000-square-mile area west of U.S. Highway 51 and north of state Highway 64, Gappa said.
Still, more and more bears are being spotted in more populous areas to the south.
"They are definitely living near people," he said. "They may not be living in the backyard, but very close to the backyard."
While no bears have taken up residence in southern Wisconsin, Gappa said, transient bears have been spotted as far south as Madison. Bears are also popping up in Jackson and Monroe counties with increasing regularity.
The close encounters may be something Wisconsinites have to get used to, Gappa said.
"Someday, we may see 20,000 bears in Wisconsin," he said. "Can those animals and people coexist harmlessly? Yes. But dealing with them is just something you'll have to learn to do if you're living in bear country."

Bear attacks, bites 2 hunters; state to track, destroy animal
By Gary Gerhardt
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Thursday, September 14, 2000
A large black bear bit two Missouri archers Wednesday while the men hunted on the eastern slope of Grand Mesa, the state Division of Wildlife reported.
"We aren't releasing their names yet, but believe they went to a hospital in Glenwood Springs, where they should be treated and released," wildlife division spokesman Todd Malmsbury said.
He said the pair, a father, 46, and his son, 25, were hunting with a third man from Arkansas.
"The bear came out of the bushes and attacked the younger man, biting him on one buttock," Malmsbury said. "His father was carrying a .44-caliber handgun, but apparently became so unnerved by the attack he ended up throwing the weapon at the bear."
The man's toss succeeded in getting the bear to break off attacking his son, but the animal turned on the father, biting him on the thigh.
The third man grabbed the handgun and fired a few shots, although it isn't known if he hit the animal, Malmsbury said.
Malmsbury said wildlife agents would track the bear with dogs and destroy it.
"We have a strict policy: If anyone is injured by a bear, it must be destroyed and checked for diseases," Malmsbury said.
© Copyright, Denver Publishing Co.

This Land Is Their Land: Bears Are Everywhere
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
BASALT, Colo., Sept. 6 — It was bad enough when Steve Solomon and his wife, Bates, found the skunk crawling around under their bed at 2 a.m. That they could deal with. Sooner or later, Mr. Solomon figured, the critter would make its way out the front door, which they routinely left open for the breeze. But was the door still open? Mr. Solomon had to check.
That's when he froze. It was open, all right. But standing only 20 feet away at the compost bin was a large black bear, chomping on the remains of a cantaloupe.
"It must have been twice my size," Mr. Solomon said today, guessing the bear's weight at 400 pounds or more. "I had a skunk behind me, a bear in front of me. I didn't know which one was worse."
Mr. Solomon is hardly the only Coloradan who of late has lived out a Goldilocks tale in reverse. Because of a hot, dry summer that has withered natural food supplies, and with an ever increasing number of people living closer to forests and wilderness areas, bears have been meeting up with humans at an alarming rate throughout the state.
So far, only a smattering of human injuries have been reported, all of them minor. The encounters have been worse on the bears, more than 25 of which have been put to death this year under Colorado's two- strikes-and-you're-out policy for those that forage too close to people. Over the same period last year, the state killed only six.
Biologists and state officials say that if there are more summers like this one, and if home construction near mountainous areas continues at its feverish pace, more dangerous confrontations are inevitable.
"If a bear learns where to find human foods, he's likely to come back," said Chuck Schwartz, an expert in bears as the leader of the United States Geological Survey's Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, in Bozeman, Mont. "They have very good memory, and they don't differentiate. If it's edible, they'll eat it."
Grizzlies are not to be confused with the black bears roaming Colorado and other states. Grizzlies, larger than black bears and more threatening to humans, are generally found only in areas around two national parks in the northwest Rockies, Yellowstone and Glacier, putting them at greater distances from population centers.
Black bears, which are known to attack humans only when they feel trapped, are commonly found in dense forests and mountain terrain at high elevations, where they have encountered unsuitable conditions in Colorado this year. A late spring frost and endless summer weeks of uncommonly hot and dry weather have cost them their usual meals of acorns and berries.
Bears typically eat up to 20 hours a day in the warm months to put on enough weight to last the winter. Denied their natural foods, they have been foraging closer to homes and towns to scavenge landfills, trash cans, even dog dishes, making this year one of the most active for officials responding to calls from frightened people throughout the Rocky Mountain West. In Colorado, reports of bear sightings and encounters now occur almost daily.
"Everybody has a bear story," said Mr. Solomon, a jewelry maker who has lived for 15 years in Basalt (pronounced buh-SALT), a mountain town 20 miles northwest of Aspen. "One woman on the next street down was canning in her kitchen with the door open. A bear wandered in to help her out."
"I know another family," he said, "who eliminated every bit of food from their house, scrubbed it down and now only eats in restaurants."
In Aspen, the food is apparently so tasty that for the first time bears have been spotted poking into garbage bins along Main Street this year. Other bears have wandered along streets in Grand Junction. Tom Theobald, a beekeeper near Boulder, said bears had twice ravaged his colonies, eating the honey and destroying equipment at a cost that now exceeds $2,000.
"I don't know how they do it," he said of the bears' marauding. "They must be taking an awful lot of stings."
Most encounters this summer have ended peacefully, but some have taken their toll on the bears, especially those that officials have previously encountered, tranquilized and tagged. Any tagged bear that returns to where people live is put to death under the state program if it can be caught. In addition, property owners have a right to shoot a bear that is threatening human life.
According to the Colorado Department of Wildlife, 74 black bears were killed in those two ways through Aug. 31, and the number is climbing so rapidly that officials say this year could easily become the worst for the bears in a decade.
Towns like Aspen and Snowmass Village, near bear habitat, are taking steps to discourage the scavenging by requiring residents to upgrade garbage receptacles and bringing misdemeanor charges against those who do not comply.
Here in Basalt, Mr. Solomon has begun storing his trash elsewhere. And, for the first time since he moved in all those years ago, he is locking his front door at night.

Woman Killed by Bear in Tennessee
Monday May 22, 2000 1: 37 PM ET
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer
GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) - A woman waiting for her ex-husband on a trail at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was killed by a black bear.
Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby was mauled Sunday, becoming the first person killed by a black bear in a federal park or reserve in the Southeast, park officials said.
``This was simply an unprovoked attack,'' Phil Francis, the park's acting superintendent, said Monday.
Bradley, an experienced hiker, and Ralph Hill, 52, entered the park about noon. The couple, who had been reconciling, hiked about 10 miles from Gatlinburg.
Hill told authorities he left Bradley on the trail to go fishing. He returned about an hour later to find her backpack on the trail and two black bears - an adult female and a yearling - at her body about 50 yards away. The 111-pound adult bear apparently killed the woman.
Two rangers shot and killed the animals.
Rangers had tagged the adult bear in 1998 and had placed an orphaned cub with her. Miller said the animal wasn't known as a problem bear.
The bears were to be tested to determine whether a disease or physical condition prompted the attack.
About 1,800 bears live in the Smokies. No other attacks have been reported this year.
Park officials have closed some campsites through Saturday as a precaution.
Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Hunters kill more bears, but not enough to slow surging growth
Associated Press, 10/27/97 15:12
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Hunters killed more black bears than usual during the first half of the Massachusetts season, but state biologists say it wasn't enough to slow the surging growth of the state's bear population.
And they predicted Monday that problems between bears and people will increase in the coming years as more and more bears are crowded out of their normal haunts and into the suburbs.
Despite a voter-imposed ban on using dogs to track bears, which went into effect this fall, a total of 74 bears were killed during the weeklong September hunt. Nearly half of the bears were taken in corn fields or other farmland. The largest, taken in Worthington, weighed 290 pounds.
That's considerably more than the 24 shot last year when plentiful food supplies kept the animals in the deep woods. Yet it's far short of the record 134 bears killed in 1995 when an extraordinarily dry summer and poor acorn crop sent even more of the usually secretive animals foraging in fields and suburbs.
Nearly all of the bears killed by hunters are taken during the first half of the season when they tend to raid the corn. By the second segment of the season, which runs from Nov. 17-22, they have retreated into the woods where they are harder to find.
``Just to stay on top of the annual population growth west of the Connecticut River, we would need an annual harvest of 150-170 animals and this was half of that,'' said Rob Deblinger, assistant director for wildlife for the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
The problem is that with an estimated 1,500 to 1,700 black bears in Massachusetts, all the good bear habitat in the state's four western counties is already occupied, and the bear population is growing at a rate of more than 10 percent a year, he said.
``It's like money in the bank, only with money you get more money as the interest comes in and with bears you compound the problems,'' Deblinger said.
Without population controls, the state is worried about bears taking advantage of living so close to humans. Already bears have been found denning under porches and decks. They've ripped through screen doors to snatch goodies off kitchen tables.
And, while some people are willing to take on the extra work of bear-proofing their property, suburbanites tend to be far less tolerant of bears raiding the garbage than raccoons, he said.
``People reach a limit with big animals,'' Deblinger said. ``Then attitudes shift and they begin to think of them as a nuisance that ought to be eliminated. And that's really what we are trying to avoid.''
The division plans to review its hunting and other bear regulations this winter with an eye to trying to come up with a way to hold the bear population in western Massachusetts at its current level, he said.
The possibilities range from extending the season to contraception, which has never been tried on a widespread population of wild bears, he said.
© Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company

When bear attacked, Ed Craft fought back
'I hauled off and hit him in the head'
Chris Nuttall-Smith Vancouver Sun
Monday, September 25, 2000
Forget the tranquilizer darts, the shotgun, the two-by-four or the pepper spray.
When an angry black bear grabbed hold of Ed Craft's bare legs last Thursday, the Prince George retiree fought the bear with a less conventional weapon: he balled his hand into a fist and clocked the beast full in the face.
Craft, 64, and his wife Elaine were woken around 1:30 Thursday morning by Harrison, their black lab mongrel who sleeps out in the yard. Harrison was barking like he was going crazy, Craft recalled in an interview from his home Sunday.
So the 230-lb (102-kg) former forestry worker, dressed only in his underwear, went to the door to see what was the matter.
The empty garbage cans had been strewn about the yard, and Harrison was tussling with a bear.
"I opened the door and I seen them fighting there so I holler at the dog," Craft said.
"I stamped my feet and hollered and everything else and the bear turned around and made a jump right up on the step at me. That's when he put his arms around my legs."
Craft worked for 40 years in wilderness logging camps, he said, and in that time he saw plenty of bears. But never before had he seen one attack.
Now the dog was terrified, the bear had sunk its claws into Craft's legs and the man was worried the bear might just make it past him and into the house.
What came next, Craft said, was instinct.
"I hauled off and hit him in the head."
Gary Van Spengen, a conservation officer in Prince George, said Sunday that bears often wander into the city in search of food, especially at this time of year.
"They end up getting used to easy meals from people's backyards and from people's garbages. They become food conditioned, then they start being habituated to humans," Van Spengen said.
Once that happens, he continued, conservation officers often have little choice but to kill them.
In a typical year, Van Spengen said, conservation officers kill 50 black bears in the city of Prince George alone. The trend is bound to continue this year, he said.
They killed one black bear in August, but a dwindling supply of fresh berries in the woods, combined with ripening tree fruit in town, has driven up the number for September. So far this month, said Van Spengen, conservation officers have killed eight black bears.
Provincewide, conservation officers last year killed 82 grizzlies and 1,138 black bears because of real or perceived threats to human safety.
And just last Wednesday -- a day before the attack on Craft -- a conservation officer in Kimberley shot two adult black bears and four cubs wandering around the town.
"A woman going up the stairs ran into them and got in between the mother and cubs," said Paula Rodriguez de la Vega of Kimberley's bear awareness program. "The sow huffed at her and she got out of the area quickly."
Not all who run into bears are so lucky.
Bears injured six people in B.C. last year. In 1998, grizzly attacks injured three people, and killed 65-year-old George Evanoff, who had been hiking about 70 kilometres east of his Prince George home.
And earlier this month, a grizzly attacked and seriously injured a 70-year-old hunter near McLeod Lake, about 140 km north of Prince George.
Conservation officers say the man, an experienced hunter and trapper, surprised the bear, which then attacked in self defence. Officers initially tracked the bear, but did not locate it.
Craft, the pugilist from Prince George, said the black bear he confronted did not know at first what to do when he hit it.
"He kind of whimpered there when I hit him in the head, eh?" Craft recalled. "I guess it startled him -- I don't know."
The bear backed off, Craft said, then it circled a few times, acting disoriented, and ran off into the green belt by Craft's house.
Craft said that aside from a few scratches and puncture wounds on his legs he feels fine, well enough even for a round of golf Sunday.
Conservation officers have set a trap for the bear, but so far it has not returned.