If you have encountered a grizzly bear:
If the bear is curious or investigative;
- Stand your ground, talking calmly to the bear. Avoid eye contact, as this will be taken as a challenge by a grizzly, look at the animal's chest or flank. If you have pepper spray, remove it from its holster and, if you have one, unclip your banger device and hold it in your hand
- If there are two or more people in your party, ease them together, slowly, so the bear sees them as a group ? this is intimidating to the bear, and it is also extremely unlikely for a group of three or more to be attacked in any case
- If the bear does not begin to move away, start moving slowly backwards, and keep your eyes on the bear, while continuing to talk calmly to it. If you can place a bear banger between you and the bear, this might be an appropriate time to do so. It is very unlikely that the bear will not leave when the banger is fired at it. It should at least leave long enough for you to retreat, though even then do not run if the bear is in view
- If you do not have a banger device, keep facing the bear until it is out of sight. Only then should you turn round. If you are not sure that the bear has moved from where you saw it, make a wide detour around the site, advertising your presence as much as possible while doing so.
If the bear appears to be displaying offensive behaviour;
- Stand your ground, talking calmly ? do not make eye contact.
- If the bear remains where it is and continues to display offensive behaviour, fire a banger between you and it if you have one, if not, do not act aggressively towards the bear. Try to remain calm, avert your gaze, looking to the side as much as possible while still keeping the bear in sight, keep talking as soothingly as possible, move backwards slowly
- Adult grizzly bears do not climb trees, so while you are facing the bear, or retreating, try to note any sturdy, climbable trees that are close to you. If the bear continues to display aggressive behaviour and you are sure you can reach a tree and climb beyond 8-9 feet up it before the bear could reach you, doing so may be a good option. Do not gamble that you can run more than a few yards to a tree if the bear is at all close by; doing so may encourage an attack, and the bear can move at twice our speed.
In the event of a charge, by either species;
- If the bear charges you, raise your pepper spray; pull away the safety clip, hold the body of the can in one hand, have the index finger of the other through the hole under the trigger, with your thumb poised above the trigger
- Hold your ground. Try to estimate when the bear is within 20 feet, and bear in mind wind strength and direction
- Aim over your thumb, depressing the trigger on the pepper spray ? the jet is quite wide and coloured, so it is reasonably easy to hit your target. You should try to hit the bear in the face with the spray
- Gauge the animal's reaction; it will probably turn and run away while reacting to the stinging of the spray, which will temporarily "blind" it ? use this time to make a retreat, only run if the bear is out of view, having left the area in another direction.
- If, for some reason, the pepper spray does not stop the bear, or if you do not have pepper spray, drop to the ground, lying flat, cover your head and neck with your hands, and spread your feet to make you more stable and harder to turn over. Wearing a backpack in this situation, which most people would be, affords substantial protection. This "playing dead" will inform the bear that you are not a threat and that there is no need to charge. People who have been through this ordeal have sometimes been bitten or briefly pawed at, but the majority have survived.
If you have to get down on the ground, keep hold of your pepper spray, if you have any. If you keep your index finger through the hole beneath the trigger, when you cover your head the can will naturally be pointing up, giving you another opportunity to spray the bear if it continues to attack. In that event, empty the can, and you will have some chance of hitting the bear at close range. If you sense the bear retreating because of this, try to note its location and move out of the way of the settling pepper spray. If you note that the bear has been hit by the spray and is not concentrating on anything else, or if it has gone out of sight, get up, if you can, and retreat as quickly as possible but with caution.
On the rare occasions that bears do attack people, the action is generally defensive, either of young, food or proximity, for example. Because of this, when the perceived threat has been dealt with, the animal will generally move away, as bears do not identify human beings as a food source. "Playing dead", as the last resort in an attack, shows the bear that the threat perceived in a person is eliminated. A number of people have been both unlucky enough to find themselves in a situation where they had to resort to playing dead, and fortunate enough for the bear to have then left them alone. However, occasionally, bears do act in a predatory way towards humans. When this does happen, it is normally the result of corrupted behaviour linked to association with humans; such as habituation to unnatural food, or because a bear lost its mother before "learning" the full range of natural behaviours.
In the exceptional incidents when people have been attacked by a bear displaying predatory behaviour, even if playing dead was successful in ending the attack, sometimes further behaviours, unnatural towards humans, have complicated the situation. On the very rare occasions these happen, they have involved the bear lying in wait near the apparent "kill", and a person either not being able to get away from the area, or being attacked on a second occasion, not realising the bear was nearby. On other occasions, people believed dead by a bear, have been dragged some distance and put in a shallow scrape and covered with leaves and earth. The intent in this is to cache the "kill" and to feed on it at a later time, perhaps when the meat has putrefied to some extent, which, apparently, bears like. Outside Alaska and northern Canada, the 10% of a grizzly bear's diet that is comprised of meat (much less for black bears), is generally carrion, which may explain why people who have been the victims of predatory attacks by bears have generally not been fed on straight away. These details are neither meant to be gruesome nor sensational, but rather are intended to illustrate the potential for further problems beyond where the victim of an attack has played dead and thinks the bear has left the area. Such behaviours, while possible, are very rare, and when they do happen they can normally be found to stem from some form of corrupted learned behaviour linked to humans.