Scary Bear Attacks Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the interior of northern British Columbia, Canada, near a small town called Gitanyow. The mountains tower to above a mile high at their peaks, and the valleys between them are broad and heavily forested. In most of these broad valleys, tangles of willow, alder and tall grasses screen deer, elk, moose and woodland caribou. You may even see American Bison browsing on grasses munching their way across meadows. Predators including cougars, wolves, coyotes and black and brown bears stalk the riparian zones to surprise their prey. It is in this setting that our episode today takes place.
On June 26th of 2019, fifty four year old Alex Woods was walking alone near Gitxsan Village just a few miles from his village Gitanyow. He was a forest pathologist and was going to check tree roots for a disease known as Armillaria Root Disease in old growth stands of forest. Alex was a lean built man who wore his silver beard trimmed short.
He had the GPS coordinates all entered into his device, but was an old school type of guy, so he just took a heading and hiked in the general direction. He had spent the last few decades in the deep woods and routinely hunted and floated the rivers.
As he walked through the foliage he noticed a freshly broken stem of a fireweed plant. Knowing this doesn’t happen unless a large animal has passed by, he took mental note to pay attention to his surroundings. He began yelling “Yo Bear!” repeatedly to let anything that was around him know he was there. He didn’t want to end up in a close range standoff with a moose, let alone a surprised bear.
A few hundred yards into his journey, Alex came up on a steep slope covered in hemlock and balsam fir, burned from a wildfire a year or two before and was open consequently. The small creek at the bottom babbled refreshed plants and animals alike, along its banks. Given the noise from the creek, Alex decided to raise his while yelling “Yo, bear” as he descended the bank.
Just beyond half way down the slope, he saw some morel mushrooms and plucked a couple for his dinner later. After he picked up the mushrooms and stood, he noticed a black bear running directly at him. It wasn’t grunting or growling. The bear didn’t have drool dripping from its lips. It simply sped toward him as if it was going to run right past him. It closed from 100 feet, when he first saw it, and quickly climbed the steep slope toward him so fast Alex wasn’t sure what he could do.
Alex quickly maneuvered himself behind a small tree with a tree laying at its trunk and began yelling at the bear. He reached his hand into his vest and pulled out his bear spray figuring that one blast from it would probably send the bear scampering in the other direction. The cap on the bear spray was stuck and he fumbled with it, trying to get to function as the bear approached him.
The next thing Alex knew, he saw a huge bear head with its mouth wide open and ready to bite into his abdomen. One thing Alex had working for him was the steep slope he was climbing down. As the bear labored up the slope, its head happened to line up for a perfect defensive strike from Alex. He yelled again, then mustered his bravery and kicked the bear as hard as he could right in the jaw. Between Alex’s kick and the steepness of the slope, the bear slid back down the slope several feet. It then began to run around the tree to get at him.
As the bear approached again, Alex yelled louder and kicked in the head as hard as he could one more time. This really rattled the bear, as it ran to a nearby tree and climbed several feet up and stared at Alex. The man was hoping that this encounter was coming to an end after the brief struggle, but in the world of bears, struggle is always part of survival.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Thank you for helping us reach 70,000 subscribers! Today’s episode takes us to frozen north of Yukon Territory, Canada, near a small town called Mayo. It lies about 250 north of Whitehorse and is surrounded by wilderness as is the homerange of the native tribe known as the Big River People.
This area has a subarctic climate and temperatures range from -80 degrees fahrenheit in winter, which lasts about 6 months, to 97 degrees in the summer, with extremely short spring and fall seasons. This area receives about 12 inches of precipitation per year, but most of that falls in the winter season as snow. With some of the nation's highest mountains here in the Saint Elias Mountain Range, the peaks stay covered in snow year round. In the southern part of the territory Boreal forest gives way to tundra. Black Spruce, White Spruce, Quaking Aspens and Balsam Poplar provide a sheltering canopy for Caribou, Moose, Mule Deer and Elk to hide in. The predators of this area are plentiful and include wolves, Black, Brown and Polar Bears as well as cougars. It is in this setting that our story begins today.
Valerie Theoret and her companion, Gjermand Roesholt had just ten months prior, welcomed their first child, Adele into the world. She was originally from Quebec and moved here about ten years ago. She made fast friends and immersed herself in the Francophone community in the area.
Valerie was nearing the end of her maternity leave from her 6th grade teaching position, guiding children in French Immersion at Whitehorse Elementary school in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Gjermon was the owner operator of 37 years old and the owner operator of a company called Wild Tracks, which guided hunting, fishing and trapping expeditions. He was from Norway originally but blended in in the territory and its rigorous wilderness folk.
The family had purchased one of the 360 trap lines in the territory about three years ago and it was located near Einarson Lake. Here he harvested wolves, foxes, lynx and other furbearers, and she would design and sell trinkets from their fur. They would take their wares back to town and sell them at trade shows and events.
While visiting the cabin, the family would live off the land and enjoy their remote haven together. Their friends indicated that they were well aware of the dangerous animal life in the area and were very experienced outdoors people.
Running a trapline is a labor intensive and perilous pursuit. Gjermond would frequently have to leave Valerie and their daughter at the cabin while he ventured on foot or snowmobile along their trapline to harvest animals caught in them, then reset the traps to continue to catch more. This way of life was so important to them they had been discussing doing it full time and year round. Their friends described them as having the time of their lives doing what they loved together.
Given their experience, they knew they had to keep things clean around their cabin. They didn’t leave food scraps or waste around to attract unwanted visitors. However, in their shed they stored organs and entrails from animals to use in their traplines as bait. They never had a problem with animals invading it though, as would use it up as the winter passed.
On the morning of November 26th, the family ate breakfast together and enjoyed each other's company. Gjermon rounded up his trapline equipment and loaded it onto his snowmobile. The couple chatted as he got ready to do his trapline check for the day, and once he was ready, Gjermand headed, with his snowmobile leaving a distinct trail for him to follow to get back home.
Somewhere between 10 am and 3 pm, Theoret decided to take Adele for a walk and enjoy the scenery and solitude together. She bundled the baby up as well as herself, and placed the baby into the backpack carrier for the trip.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Southern Siberia to a province in the Russian Federation called Tuva. This area is poverty stricken and is renown for its crime and drug abuse. The temperature here can drop to -80 degrees in the winter and over 100 degrees in the summer. The Siberian Larch, Laurel leaf Poplar and the Scots Pine are among the tallest trees here and Kites and Kestrels hunt the Chee and tufted hair grasses. A few of the common animals here are wolves, snow leopards, mountain sheep, antelope, reindeer and brown bears. It is in this wilderness setting that our episode takes place.
On June 1st of 2019, twenty nine year old Nikolay Irgit was headed out to the wilderness near his hometown of Khut, with several of his friends to gather horns and antlers that were shed by animals in the winter. Some of the animals that died in the winter would leave behind their horns that could be sold on the black market for money. This activity required a permit issued by the local government but Nokolay and his friends declined to purchase theirs as it bit into their profits.
In his everyday life, Nikolay was a school caretaker and happy father of two sons and one daughter he was raising with his twenty five year old wife, Aida. Given the condition of the local economy, Nikolay and his friends couldn’t afford firearms, nor bear spray. They didn’t even bother bringing knives along with them. They weren’t planning for any confrontations in which they may need them and wouldn’t be long in the woods. They had planned a quick trip and to return to their families by nightfall with their haul.
Shortly after arriving at the area they planned to search in, they began to spread out and looked in their own spots for antlers and horns. As Nikolay walked around for a few hours he began to push his way through some dense brush. He emerged on the far side of the bushes and glanced up. His eyes widened as a massive brown bear filled his vision, glaring at him. The bear was just a few yards away and Nikolay had walked nearly right up beside the giant bear, which was estimated to weigh around 1,000 pounds.
As soon as their eyes met, the bear flung itself toward the man letting out an ear shattering roar as it came. Nikolay clenched his fists and yelled at the bear as it advanced, hoping the bear would bluff charge him, then run away. But, if bears operated on our hopes or expectations of them, we would all be safe when we encountered them. The bear didn’t bluff charge him but opened its mouth wide and reached out for his arm. Nikolay instinctively punched the bear in the head but this didn’t even make the bear flinch, as it immediately bit onto his forearm and lept on top of him.
The bear immediately bit into his abdomen and tore at his flesh, then moved up to his chest and ripped flesh there. He was careful to point out whenever he relayed his story that the bear never clawed him, but exclusively used its powerful jaws. It apparently wanted to devour him immediately.
While being savaged by the angry bear, Nikolay didn’t smell anything. He didn’t feel anything during the attack. He began to lose any regard for his own life but thoughts of his children and wife flashed through his mind. He loved them so much and didn’t want them to be without him.
After the bear bit at his chest, it changed its savage focus to his head. It clamped its massive jaws onto his skull and began tearing his scalp just above his left forehead. One of its canines punched into his left eye orbit tearing his flesh from the middle of his eyelid back a few inches toward his temple.
At that point, Nikolay opened his eyes and his entire visual field was filled with the enormous maw of the bear gleaming with huge teeth closing over the width of his face. As the bear bit into his face he felt enormous pain shoot through his body like electricity.
Thank you for watching Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to The Nalchin Public Use Area just northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. This part of the state consists of steep mountains covered in fir and pine stands and forests, as well as birch trees, alder and willow bushes crowding the valley floors. There are hillsides that are covered with shorter bushes as well, but most of the area is forest. The animals here are the typical Alaskan fauna, including moose, brown and black bear, as well as an abundance of fur bearers and birds.
I was hunting moose near Anchorage Alaska in the Nalchina Public Use Area, a huge tract of land dedicated to people to enjoy the woods. In Alaska, hunters are allowed to hunt moose for subsistence, that is, for food. The requirements to harvest are that the moose must be a bull of a specific size or larger. I had been hunting in my secret spot for about 8 years and it had been a reliable place to find bull moose that met the subsistence hunting minimum size requirements for each of the last 8 years. This is no small feat in moose hunting and this place is what hunters call a “honey hole”. That means that is a sweet spot to harvest the target animals.
In the fall of 2011 I was doing my normal yearly preparation before heading to my honey hole by float plane. I took careful inventory of my necessities and tracked their weight as I would only have 180 pounds of cargo load to carry on my Dehaviland Beaver before passing the weight limit. I grabbed the usual equipment, my tent, sleeping bag, guns, ammo and distinctly recall carefully examining my moose call and being excited about how much meat it had helped me put in the freezer.
The next morning I arrived at the small private airport and eagerly walked toward my small plane in the dark. My gear was already loaded the prior day and all I had to do was buckle up and prepare for take off. I cracked the engine after completing my pre-flight review and then taxied down the short runway. As I gained speed and approached the end of the runway, my Dehaviland Beaver lifted off gracefully and away I went.
I flew for a little over under an hour and saw the Talkeetna River come into view. In stretches of the river it is a steep canyon which can make for very frightening and riveting wind patterns at times. I followed the river to the point at which it turns west and I went east, gently landing at remote Stephan Lake. The lake is surrounded by a mix of tundra, bush and small patches of Sitka Spruce. Now Sitka Spruce are a particular species of Spruce tree which are adapted to the arctic and subarctic climate and grow in muskeg areas and don’t usually pass about 5 to 7 feet in height. This area offered tremendous views to observe for my moose. As I unpacked my float plane and tethered it to the shore, I paused to take in the cool October air and the freedom and loneliness that Stephan Lake always gave me. It centered me in many ways, and helped me keep perspective on life when I visited it.
I set up my tent and laid out my bed and sleeping bag and prepared my dinner. After eating dinner and briefly reading my Bible I decided to get to bed. I was too excited to go to sleep right away and tentatively planned out my hunt the next day. Uneventfully, consciousness faded and I fell asleep.
My alarm startled me awake at 7:30 AM. It was cold outside of my sleeping bag and I hurriedly got dressed and put on my stalking cap. I warmed up some oatmeal and sipped my coffee quickly so I could get on the trail as quickly as possible, then I remembered, it wouldn’t even get light for another hour. I decided to take advantage of having the time to start hiking toward a meadow that had often had bull moose and many other game animals there in the past. Utilizing my headlamp to light my way,
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the Two Oceans Pass area located in the Teton Wilderness area just south of Yellowstone park near Cody, Wyoming. This area features majestic granite peaks biting into the sky above lush forest of fir and pine. It receives a lot of snowfall each winter which keeps the undergrowth thick to hide the elk, deer and moose that tiptoe along the meadows and streams in the valleys. Cougars, wolves and black and brown bears round out the dominant predators that stalk the hillsides. Drawing skiers, horseback riders, trail hikers and sightseers, this area is a sportsman's paradise and it is dotted with expensive cabins here and there.
On September 27th, 2021 licensed Wyoming hunting guide Tyler Barnard was leading his clients, who were father, whom we will call Dave, and son, whom we will call Juston on an elk hunt. The party was pursuing a large bull elk which to them was a satisfactory specimen. Rifle season for elk had just started about a week before and the country was rough hiking, wild and rigorous.
On the 27th the party had found and shot at the bull they had their eyes on. The shot seemed like a good hit and they followed the ample blood trail for a good mile or so before the blood trail dwindled, limiting their ability to follow it any further. Recognizing their dilemma and limited abilities due to sunset, the men called it a day and agreed to return first thing in the morning to follow up on the bull and hopefully reclaim its carcass and antlers as best they could.
They resumed the search on the 28th to no avail. They returned for one last good look as ethics require hunters to do. It was 85 degrees out that day so they knew they would have to find it as soon as possible, fairly confident that the meat they wanted was bone soured if not completely rotten by now. Even if they did lose the meat the Wyoming game laws required them to do every reasonable thing to recover the carcass and salvage it if possible.
The morning of September 29th, the trio head out to find another bull, as they were convinced the bull they shot a few days prior may have escaped and not died at all. At about 8 AM they were hiking up a trail in the same area they found the prior bull in, when they noticed a whiff of death in the air. Elk meat has its own distinct smell as do most species, so the men decided to investigate a little more. With fair certainty that the smell was coming from the bull they had previously wounded, the men left their rifles on their horses and began walking to the edge of a small ridge that the smell seemed to be coming from.
As they crested the ridge they could see small pines protruding from numerous larger trees now dead and blown down by winds and decay. Because the pines were young the visibility was limited by their low canopies. Visual lanes appeared but mostly were limited to about 25 yards at most vantage points.
The men briefly discussed how they had to go about the act of recovery. They agreed to look for the bull and then locate the carcass with a pin on their GPS. Next, they would have a recovery team come in and reclaim the carcass and the antlers after they had tagged it. Edible or not, the hunters had an ethical duty to tag the elk and they were dedicated to the ethical practice.
Now, these men were no dummies. They came in loaded for bear, literally. Tyler carried a 10MM model 20 Glock loaded with Buffalo Bore 190 grain hard cast bullets. This is a powerful pistol but is obviously nowhere near as powerful as even a smaller caliber hunting rifle. Justin was also packing a 45ACP with a red dot sight and a 15 round magazine. He loaded it with Hollowpoint +P self defense ammunition. Dave wasn’t carrying a sidearm, but did bring along his can of bear spray just in case. It turned out they would need every bit of the firepower they brought with them on this day.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the hot and dry mountains around Caliente, California. The arid climate features mountains and hills sparsely covered in dry grasses, low growing desert bushes like Big Berry and Common Manzanita, Fremont Cottonwood and the Blue Oak tree. The ground cover is seasonally adorned with California Fuchsia, Western Columbine and Deer Grass plus many more. The animals of the area include the coyotes, jackrabbits, cottontail rabbits, mule deer and bobcats. The more dangerous inhabitants of this area include black bears. On the higher slopes of the desert mountains, forests of various kinds of Oak, Willow, Mesquite and Sycamore dominate the skyline and provide shade for all passersby.
On July 22nd of 2018, Allena Hansen was enjoying the freedom and space of her sprawling 70 acre ranchette. She always had chores to do to maintain the property but the 56 year old single mother embraced the hard work required. On this day she was focused on fixing a water line for a new vineyard she was planning on constructing in the near future. The spring fed into a concrete box with a flood gate and the spring had started to decrease in its flow. To Allena that meant she would have to dig out any obstructions to keep the water flowing in order to execute her plan. She hiked up the box canyon where the spring was located with her two trusty ranch hands, Deke, who was a huge English Mastiff, and Archimedes, a very large Irish Wolfhound. Her dogs were her best friends in many ways, and today’s events would once again confirm that fact to Allena.
There was nothing alarming about the day and she felt no strange or foreboding feelings as she worked. In fact, Deke and Archimedes had wandered off a short distance and found some shade to take a nap.
The tough rancher entered her irrigation box and began clearing mud and gravel from the mouth of the spring that fed it. As she worked in the summer heat, she could see the spring begin to produce a greater flow of water. She had to stop periodically to wipe her brow and rest. As she worked she drew the attention of a particularly predatory visitor who had somehow managed to slip past the sleeping dogs and approached to within ten feet of Allena.
After digging around a bit more, Allena stood up to recompose herself. This time she was not refreshed by rest, instead she was alarmed by a rather small black bear only a few feet from her. She noticed the bear had been simply standing there barely hidden by a small willow patch, as if it was waiting for her to notice it. As soon as their eyes met the angry black bear pounced on Allena.
She quickly tried to fold herself into the fetal position in the west sand to protect her head and neck as best she could. The bear immediately clamped its jaws onto her head and bit and pulled at her ears. As it pulled her by her head, it managed to bite onto her face. It immediately began to tear skin and tissues from her face as it bit. It used its mass of only about 150 pounds to pin her to the ground by sitting on her. Allena is only around 100 pounds so she wasn’t much of a challenge to control for the powerful bear. Even a small bear is much stronger than a very large man and quicker by far than any human.
As the bear pressed Allena into the sand it focused its attack on her head and face. It was clearly trying to rip her head off and possibly crush her skull. The terror that filled her mind was paralyzing, but somehow she fought as hard as she could.
The black bear sank its large canine teeth into Allena’s right eye socket and ripped small pieces of flesh from that area. She reported hearing her tissues being ripped and the chomping sound the bear's jaw made as it meted out its destruction on her.
It next focused on destroying her nose and mouth. Its jaws crushed and sliced the skin and tissues of her nose and rendered it into crushed and mutilated meat.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to The wilderness just north of Columbia Falls, Montana. The terrain of this area features valleys at around 3500 feet in elevation with nearby hills reaching near the mile high mark of 4500 to 5000 feet. The Trumbull Canyon Road is an excellent jumping off spot for anyone wanting to get into the more remote areas for hunting, hiking or general adventuring. In this area there are nearly uninterrupted forests of pine and fir trees that stretch for miles. Along the creek bottoms willow and alder bushes screen and shelter the whitetail deer, elk and moose that sneak amongst them. The berries offering up their fruit to human and animal visitors include Huckleberry, Thimbleberry, Chokecherry and Gooseberry. Patches of Stinging Nettle, Nodding Onion and Mountain Sorrel decorate the ground with their beautiful flowers and add variety to the visual cornucopia. The dominant predators of the area include cougars, wolves, coyotes and black bears but the topic of our episode today is the powerful brown bears of the area.
On the morning of November 11th, 2018 Anders Broste was teaching a friend, Dan Hansen to hunt elk and deer. The men had pushed their way through a few inches of snow early in the morning when they approached a very thick, tangled stand of brush. The branches of the leafless underbrush tugged at Anders clothes and his rifle as he fought his way through it. His visibility was very limited and he couldn’t do anything about the noise of the bushes rustling against his clothes and other branches as we forced his way through. Hansen was about 150 yards away from him filming as Anders navigated his route.
As he parted the brush with effort, he looked up and noticed a big bear head rising up before him from behind a log. He immediately recognized the dish faced profile of a grizzly bear and he was filled with terror as he realized he had its focused attention. The bear was a mere 15 yards from him and spun quickly to face this surprise interuption to its slumber.
Thirty six year old Anders moved to his home he shared with his wife, Anaka, on Trumbull Canyon Road after the two had wed and he accepted a job at Applied Materials selling specialized bikes around the world. He has always been drawn to the mountains and even rearranged his life so that he could be where he loved to adventure and be active. Anaka was from the area and knew her husband would love doing what he enjoyed there.
Anders loved being outside. From skiing, biking, hiking, rafting, fishing and hunting, he is described as spending more time outside than inside.
As the bear streaked toward him, parting brush and branch as it clearly drove itself toward a confrontation with the hunter, Anders began stumbling backward trying to increase the distance between him and the enraged bear. He struggled to pull his rifle from his shoulder but his efforts were hindered by the interference from the brush. His mind raced for a solution as the reality of the situation ran through his mind. He was in a dangerous situation and could do nothing about it. The only thing he could do was brace for impact and desperately hope the attack would be brief.
As the bear rapidly approached, Anders quickly untangled his rifle and managed to push it between the bear and himself. The rifle barrel grazed the bear's shoulder and did nothing to slow down the bear's advance. He couldn’t click off his safety and didn’t even have time to put his finger in the trigger guard before the bear impacted him as he toppled to his back.
The bear was on top of him before he could process it and put the 1200 pounds of force per square inch bite force to use. It sank its teeth into his right arm and shook its head back and forth forcefully like a dog with a toy. It twisted its head as it shook and Anders heard his arm bones pop under the force of the bear's jaws.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the wild northern Rockies near Cariboo in British Columbia, Canada. The granite mountains soar above the valley floor, which is around 3700 feet in elevation. The mountain ranges here form a barrier that traps incoming moisture from the Pacific Ocean. In this area fog and snow are common for much of the year. Because of the geography, the valleys between the mountains are lush and green. A ground level canopy of alder, berry bushes and wildflowers like yellow glacier lily and fireweed decorate the scenery. Pine and fir trees tower in the upper canopy and provide shade and shelter from the wind. The larger mammals of the area are black and brown bears, elk, moose, deer, cougar and wolves. Mountain sheep and goats balance on the rugged Rocky Mountain slopes as they seek out meager forage.
On August 4th 1984, eccentric inventor and adventurer, Troy Hurtubise was enjoying his time in the back country of central Canada. Troy trekked through the backwoods trying to carry his camp goods to a different trail which led to another location. The last few days he had felt an ominous presence watching him from the woods, but knew that he couldn’t let it paralyze him. He spent a lot of time in the wild and this sense of impending doom was something he knew he couldn’t ignore.
As he slowly stumbled across the ground under the heavy burden of his backpack, he carried his portable sluice in his right hand and his 22 caliber rifle in his left. Over his head he had drapped his inflatable raft. Under this heavy burden and with his vision nearly completely blocked by the raft, that familiar sense of foreboding filled Troy once again, as he emerged from the trees into a small meadow. This time the feeling of impending doom was overpowering. He could feel the climax of terror that had haunted him over prior days.
Troy couldn’t stand it any longer and suddenly dumped the raft from his head and quickly glanced around. He searched to see the source of the ominous feelings he had felt. As he looked to his left he saw an enormous grizzly bear leaning over a stump just like a man leaning on a bar at a pub. The bear had a gray beard like an old man and it had its elbows on top of the stump as it leaned over it, glaring at Troy. Now, Troy was a bit of a throwback. He knew better than to carry a high powered rifle. He felt they were unreliable in that they may misfire or you could run out of bullets. He packed a knife known as an Arkansas Toothpick. To people who know anything about knives they would attest to the fact that it has a giant, sharp double edge blade that widens about two inches toward its handle. Anything with an Arkansas Toothpick plunged into it wouldn’t stand a chance at survival. Troy carried two of these for his personal defense against bears.
Troy was about 5’8’ tall and on all fours the bear was nearly as tall as Troy at its shoulder. As the Old Man streaked toward him, he lost control of his bladder and his sphincter. He peed and crapped himself in terror. About twenty feet from Troy, the giant bear slammed on the brakes and slid to within just a few feet from him and stared him in the eyes for a second.The bear found the answers he was searching for in Troy's eyes, and he quickly snapped his jaws out toward the man's chest. Troys flew through the air several feet and landed on his back pack. Visions of the bear's next actions raced through his mind. He imagined the bear pouncing on him and slashing his flesh with enormous claws, rendering his flesh tattered, but knew it would not be a fast death. But. the savage slashing attack never happened.
His sluice box and rifle flew out of his reach to either side as he landed on his back. The bear huffed and pawed the ground in a furious demonstration of Troy’s trespass on his territory.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the nearly impenetrable hardwood forests of the Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. The landscape here was shaped by untold eons of glacial activity leaving behind rolling landscapes, small cliffs and rich soils. Beavers bob along in the lakes and ponds as they chew branches to build their lodges. The dense forests of Sugar Maple, Hemlock and Yellow Birch hide moose and whitetail deer and the common predators of the area are wolves and black bear. It is this setting that today’s episode takes place.
In May, 1978, 18 year old Richard Rhindress and his 16 year old brother, William invited 12 year old George Halfkenny and his 14 year old brother Mark out for a great day on the lake fishing at Radiant Lake. The early summer sun bounced off the ripples confirming its name.
The boys spent the morning running up and down the lake shore, casting their bait into promising fishing holes and laughing together. Their campfire kept them warm as the summer sun heated the day and lit up the beautiful green foliage.
The fish were hungry and big and the boys ran their stringer through the gills of each of the fish they caught, then ran off to catch the next one.
As the day wore on and the afternoon faded, there was a very subtle shift in the shadows. From the dense brush, a large black bear watched the young men laugh and holler while they fished. Being an amazing ambush predator, well camouflaged for stalking the dark shadows of thick forests, the bear no doubt analyzed every approach alley to sneak upon the boys and still remain concealed.
The boys had spread out a bit as the evening approached and George was hidden around a bend in the shoreline. The visual contact the boys had maintained all day had relaxed a bit and the fun had reduced their watchfulness. George quietly readied his hook for another cast into the clear, cold waters but was unaware that he had become the object of a hungry visitor's fascination.
As George cast his bait then waited impatiently for a bite the large black bear slipped silently through the growing shadows to within a few yards of him. The leaves on the forest floor were several months old and had decomposed through a freezing winter which robbed them of their crunch and rustling. The bear's approach was virtually silent to the unaware young fisherman. In a blinding ambush from behind the boy, the bear quickly broke his neck and ended his life and terror.
With George’s death, his stretch of the shore was eerily silent. Mark and William were a little ways away, but started to grow concerned when they hadn’t heard from George for a while. The two boys began calling his name but received no answer. It seemed possible he was a little farther away than they thought so they continued to yell, louder this time.
After an extended bout of yelling and hollering the boys decided to investigate George’s whereabouts. They made their way along the shoreline for a while, but couldn’t find a trace of George.
Unbeknownst to the young men, the bear undoubtedly heard their voices and listened as they approached George’s body, now being claimed as his food. The bear slipped into the shadows toward the boys to intercept them while they were unaware.
George’s brother Mark began walking a worn trail away from the shoreline to investigate, in an attempt to find any sign of his brother. As he delved deeper into the forest the light faded and bushes closed in around the trail. The bear ambushed him quickly, in a similar way it did George, and broke his neck. His death was quick and merciful. The bear now had two dead bodies from which to feed, but the horror wasn’t over.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the old west setting of the high canyons and mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. There was a Spanish settlement there by the name of Colonia Pacheco. This area comprises three distinct geographical areas. An extinct volcano named Cerro Mohinora is the highest mountain in the Sierra Madre Occidental ranges which makes up ⅓ of the area. The rest is plains and desert. The animal life includes While tailed deer, wolves, bears and cougars plus smaller animals like bats, foxes and raccoons.The native plants include Lechuguilla, Mesquite, Guayule and ocotillo. The elevation averages around a mile high which is the same as Denver, Colorado, back in the states. At the time the state of Chihuahua had 18279 people and 97,000 square miles meant there were only 5 people per square mile. That leaves plenty of room for big predators to roam, like Brown Bears.
George and Hyrum Naegle were brothers and in the early summer of 1892 they were helping out on one of their family's many ranches. They were Mormon settlers pushed into Mexico after they were chased out of Missouri in the US. The ranchers had been experiencing a rash of calf and colt predations and the area was loaded with plenty of culprits. They had estimated a $300 loss so far this spring, and in those days, that amounted to several thousands of dollars.
On the Saturday before the day in question, Hyrum had been out hunting down predators by himself. He came home and told George and the others that he had run into a really big brown bear, also called a grizzly bear. The two brothers decided they would go get that bear on Monday.
They headed out to the area, on Monday, to where the bear was spotted and split up to search for him. They would regularly meet back up and discuss the plentiful sign and tracks in the area. They also found several carcasses of their calves consumed by the bear with track evidence present.
By Wednesday, June 22nd, 1892, they decided to hunt along the Gavilan River and pull all of their cattle from the area to ensure their safety. The brothers split up for a while and found some of their herd, and headed them down a small canyon. As they came out onto the side of the hill, Hyrum spotted the big brown bear again. He yelled out “hey there it is over on the point!”. The brothers dismounted their horses and grabbed their rifles. Hyrum shot a 44 Winchester lever action rifle and George shot a 45 Marlin.
Hyrum opened up the shooting and hit the bear in the vitals, followed by a good shot by George. The brothers continued to fire several more shots and were certain they were hitting the bear, but it continued to walk along the bottom of the canyon. The bear headed up the other side of the canyon and George sent one more bullet in his direction. That bullet hit pay dirt and sent the massive bear tumbling back toward the bottom of the canyon, bawling the entire way. George worked the action of his rifle and managed to jam one bullet into the backside of another. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife and beagan unjamming his rifle.
The bear lay motionless on the ground for a few moments, but quickly struggled to his feet and crawled back up the hill about 30 yards to an oak tree, where he collapsed again.
Hyrum hollered “that got him!, let’s leave our horses and take him on foot!” and immediately began to pursue the bear. George had fired all three of his cartridges and was still working on clearing his last jammed cartridge, so he lagged behind by several minutes. George yelled at Hyrum not to follow so close to the bears trail as the men were now equally placed on opposite sides of the canyon.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the remote and rugged mountains just north of Yellowstone National Park in southwest Montana. The granite peaks soar over valleys stuffed with plants and animals. Each season brings its own state of energy as fall season transitions to a slower time. Pines, fir trees and Aspen trees markout the horizon and willow, blueberry and buckbrush hug the lay of the land. In this area, elk, moose, deer, sheep and goats adorn the hillside and black and brown bear, cougar, wolves, coyotes and bobcat stalk the shadows.
In September of 1995 the Schaffer family were on their last day of muzzleloader hunting for elk on Horseshoe Mountain in Montana. None of the hunters have successfully harvested anything yet, but the group is optimistic today is their day. Horseshoe Mountain is a 10,000 foot peak that lies just north of Yellowstone National Park and is surrounded by remote and rugged wilderness.
As the hunters climb to the peak of the mountain they can see the distant clouds of a storm blowing in. They spread out a bit to push through the timber and agree to meet back at camp at the bottom of the mountain for dinner. Bram is at the far end of the line of hunters and is an energetic high school football star who just graduated from high school the prior spring. He heads over a nearby ridge and separates himself from the group trying to go into a different area than they had previously covered.
Bram is cocky and strong in his youth and quickly gets into some promising elk habitat. He starts to see some older elk sign but nothing promising. As he looks around for more recent tracks he notices that the birds are not singing and usual forest sounds are all quiet. He begins to feel a sense of impending disaster and he suddenly sees a huge grizzly bear speeding toward him, growling, drooling and popping her jaws as she surges toward him. Bram had inadvertently walked right between a sow grizzly bear and her cub as they were guarding a nearby elk carcass they were feeding on.
As the sow blurs toward him, Bram yells for her to stop and tries to get out her way thinking maybe she will run past him and leave him be. The sow sprints straight up to him and shoves him to his back with her paws like an NFL lineman.
The sow shreds Bram’s down jacket and blaze orange hunting vest as she digs her 2 ½ inch canines deeply into his shoulder. Then she paws him across the head and rips his scalp away from his skull. Bram decides he has to fight back and punches the bear in the nose and she chomps a hole through his thumb joint. It is a one sided fight at best but Bram has no choice and fights for his life.
Bram searches for his muzzleloader frantically and sees the enraged bear is now sitting on it. She puts her massive head on his lap and huffs her anger at him several times as if to tell him to stay away from her cub. She opens her enormous mouth filled with long yellow teeth and bites into Brams right thigh and lifts him off the ground. She thrashes her head around tossing him back and forth several times. When she does this she tears a huge chunk of his muscle and tissue from the bone and rips it down toward his knee a few inches. She then slams him to the ground and he plays dead.
The sow then walks a short distance away and continues to watch Bram, to see if he is still a danger to her and her cub. Bram tries to lay still and slowly grabs his muzzleloader and points it in the sows direction. She sees the movement and starts to return to finish him off, but Bram somehow squeezes off a shot. The bullet placement is lucky and drops her dead instantly.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Waugh Mountain just north of Cotopaxi, Colorado around 80 miles south of Denver. This particular part of the Pike and San Isabel National Forest displays steep and rugged mountains covered in pine and fir trees predominantly. There are pockets of willow, aspen and various berry bushes wherever water is present. The mountains are packed with deer and elk but authorities are uncertain about just how many black bears live in the state of Colorado.
Colin McClelland was from a very outdoorsy family. His father was a licensed outfitter in Colorado for 13 years and Colin was a lumberjack and camped on Waugh Mountain because he harvested timber from nearby timber stands. Colin had been working out of this area for several years and had had a rash of bear problems for the last three. He called the Colorado Division of Wildlife last year when a bear broke into his camper and consumed all of his food.
Lately, he had been having bears show up around his RV at night and scratch and sniff around his camp. Colin was smart enough to know not to leave anything that might attract a bear outside, but his camper was full of his own food as well, so he thought that is what must bring them back.
Colin didn’t know this but four nuisance black bears were sedated, ear tagged then relocated to Waugh Mountain since 1988. Now authorities know that one was run over and killed in the road, hunters killed 2 during hunting season, but one bear simply disappeared. This is the ideal situation for the wildlife management authorities. They don’t exactly like killing bears, even nuisance bears, as it is better to give them a second chance in a more remote area and allow nature to take its course. Any new entrant into prime bear territory will have to fit in with the established bear pecking order and may die if it doesn’t do that soon after being released.
Colin hadn’t been feeling well the last few days and was taking some pretty strong flu medicine to help him recover. Harvesting lodgepole pines was tiring work and being sick while doing it made it even more tiring.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Arviat, Nunavut Island, to a place called Sentry Island in Hudson Bay in northeast Canada. This wind swept land of rock and ice is a nearly inhospitable place but indigenous people have scraped out a living here for untold eons. When the ice melts in the summer, the natives can fish, but in the brutal winters, ice covers the water and land, and the humans frequently come face to face with the worlds largest bear species in competition for a common food source, seals. The polar bear is renowned as being one of the very few bear species who stalks human beings and considers them as a part of the ecosystem. There are no trees to climb here. The only avenues for escape are the open seas or to run across the open ground. The polar bear can run 35 miles per hour and swim for days on end, so neither of those options is viable. That leaves only yourself as a means of self defense, escape or protection.
Aaron Gibbons was a 31 year old father of 1 son and 3 daughters and a member of the Inuit community. He was known for being a great hunter and providing meat for needy members of the community as well as being a dedicated family man. His friends would describe him as having never lost his temper which is quite a feat with 4 young children.
On July 3rd, 2018 Aaron loaded up his 4 children and his .22 LR firearm into his boat. The group planned to go to Sentry Island to harvest bird eggs and have a fun family day. They departed Arviat, their 2500 person community, and motored the 10 miles to the island.
Aaron’s children, who are all elementary school age, piled off the boat and immediately started playing and running around. They were carefree with no stress in their lives, as the warmth of the summer energized them as it does to young people. Their dad secured the boat on the rocky shore and began making his way toward the kids.
Aaron instructed the kids on what to look for when gathering the eggs and how to avoid any problems with defensive bird parents and turned the vivacious kids loose! They ran around finding and seeking their seasonal delicacy as if Mother Nature sponsored an Easter Egg hunt a few months too late.
As the children amassed a growing collection of bird eggs, Aaron’s mind slipped into a bit of a mental recess, and reflection for a moment. He is hastily snapped out of it when he sees a huge white mass stealthily moving in the direction of his kids.
At this time of year, most polar bears are essentially doing what their brown bear cousins do in the winter, a sort of summer hibernation. They don’t find a den or bury themselves but they do lay around and wait for cooler temperatures to prevail while living off of the body fat they have amassed over the winter hunting period. The only polar bears that do not do this are the desperate, starving ones.
As the large white mass slowly morphs into what Aaron recognizes as a polar bear, Aaron knows he will have to intervene. This bear is not playing. It is not just curious. It is sneaking up on his daughter while she plays and gathers eggs.
Aaron heeds the demeanor of the polar bear. Its head is down and ears are back. It is moving slowly and watching the children as they dart from nest to nest. It carefully examines its most hidden approach avenues and slowly closes the distance between the children and himself.
Aaron knows this is a dire situation and immediately puts a plan of action into place. He orders his kids to run to the boat immediately as he runs toward them and gathers rocks. His 22 long rifle firearm is in his boat and that is in the other direction so Aaron utilizes the weapons he has on hand, baseball sized stones.
As the kids run toward the safety of the boat, the polar bear starts to quickly close the distance between them. Aaron intercepts their path and lob
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the remote and nearly untouched Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve with its iconic glaciers and fjords. The park is located in SouthEast Alaska along the coast and presents some of the most beautiful scenery on earth. The forests are lush and green with giant pines and all kinds of berry bushes. The bay itself lies to the east of where our events that we are discussing today occurred. This area is remote and rugged. Help is not close nor is it fast in response. Most people who travel to this area understand that if they get into trouble, they are on their own.
On September 10th, of 1976, 25 year old, Alan Precup arranged for his backpacking trip into the preserve through the visitors office. He was up from Illinois and had quickly embraced the Alaskan lifestyle. He established his travel route and timeline so they would know where he was planning on visiting and when he would be back. When September 13th rolled around Mr. Precup did not meet officials at his pick up time and location. A search was immediately launched to locate him.
On September 16th, a party including Charles Jackson, Leilani Vega, Peter Talbot and Colin Milmer were hiking into the White Thunder Ridge area just above Muir Inlet. The group had been briefed on Mr. Precup and agreed to keep an eye out for him. They were only planning on staying a single night and being picked up on the 17th, but it made them a little more comfortable to know there were search crews in the area. The group began setting up their camp to prepare their soup lunch and hot chocolate. The fresh air rejuvenated them as they embraced their short lived experience to the fullest.
It was a little after 11:30 AM when Talbot noticed a brown dot approaching in the distance along the lake. It could be a caribou, or maybe a moose. It didn’t look big enough to be a moose though. Slowly the brown dot approached and the friends discerned it was a smallish brown bear. The group decided to take some proactive measures to make sure this bear knew they were there and were not prey. They grabbed pots and pans and anything else and clanged it together and yelled to frighten the bear. Each time they did this, the bear would stop and look around, seemingly confused, but then continue heading toward them after a few seconds.
The party now decides that the safest thing they could do is to pack up their food items and hike over to a shelf of cliffs, in a respectful attempt at getting out of the bear's intended travel route. He would probably just walk right past them and go be a bear somewhere else.
They labored to the cliff tops and found trees to cache their food in. As they looked down upon their camp, they could see the bear trashing their tents and biting anything he could find with human scent. Then the bear dropped its nose, like a bloodhound, onto the group's trail. The bear sniffed along the exact path they used to get to the safety of the cliffs. They immediately decided they needed to make more space between them and the bear so they headed further away from camp along the cliff. They looked back at their food stash, expecting to see the bear pulling in their food bags, but the bear kept his nose to the ground and followed their trail. He wasn’t interested in the food cache, but the people.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the majestic Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the Navajo River. The San Juan Wilderness area is a rugged combination of forest and granite peaks ranging in elevation from around 8,000 ft to about 12,000 feet. The valleys flush with deer, elk, coyotes and black bear, but the ecological niche of the grizzly now goes unfilled. On the eve of September 23rd, 1979 Colorado native and hunting guide, Ed Wiseman slips quietly through the forest as the day of elk hunting winds down. Ed thinks of himself as a bit of a throwback mountain man who enjoys living as close to nature as he can get. That is why he enjoys archery hunting. It beckons to something primordial in his spirit. Mike Niederee is the 25 year old hunting partner of Ed and is about 300 yards from his hunting partner looking for an elk. The Kansan handles the steep terrain well and enjoys their time in the mountains. He glances ahead and sees what he thinks is a large black bear. The bear lifts its nose to the breeze and gets a good sniff of Mike and heads down the draw toward Ed. Ed hears a rustling in the bushes nearby. As he turns to take a good look at what is making the bushes shake so much, a 400 pound female grizzly erupts from the bush and steams toward him. He immediately recognizes her as a grizzly but knows they haven’t been observed in Colorado in over 27 years. The sow closes the short distance before Ed can do anything other than drop to the ground and pretend to be dead. This is what the textbooks and professionals say to do after all. He thuds to the ground but apparently this bear is not fooled by his acting performance. She immediately clamps her jaws on his right leg and bites over and over several times, tearing his pants, skin and flesh severely. Next, she bites into his right shoulder with her 2.5” canines puncturing tissue to the bone and creating massive wounds wherever she bites. Ed feels his flesh being torn and the pain is electrifying. When the sow continues the attack for more than a few seconds, he realizes he may need to fight for his life. As the rage of her attack continues Ed takes inventory of any possible weapons in his area. He is an avid bowhunter and does not carry a firearm and bear spray was still being developed. He looks to his left and sees his arrows, now knocked from his quiver, laying on the ground within arms reach. They are good and sharp from the time he spent sharpening before leaving camp this morning. Ed reaches over and grasps one of the aluminum arrows and in one fluid motion plunges it into the grizzlies neck like a long dagger. The arrow shaft breaks in two and blood sprays into his face. He hit paydirt with his first strike severing the sow's jugular vein. Unphased by the fatal wound to her neck, the grizzly continues to tear at him with her claws and bite him severely. Ed reaches up and removes the arrow shaft from her neck and plunges it into her chest just behind her leg. This blow strikes her in the heart, causing her to withdraw a short distance.
The year was 1924 and fur trapper Jess Sethington had decided to make his way up to the headwaters of the Unuk River without the companionship of another person. People venturing into the isolated backcountry of Alaska have an unwritten rule and that was to never go alone, but Jess didn’t heed that advice. He was very experienced after all, and his trip was not supposed to be long in duration. Jess didn’t return when scheduled and four of his woodsman friends began the tracking process. They located several of his campsites and then all signs of the trapper disappeared.
About nine years later, gold miners and brothers Jack and Bruce Johnstone, and their trusty dog Slasher, had decided to trek to the productive headwaters of The Unuk River. The labor of the day was exhausting yet rewarding as the remote area was largely untapped and begrudgingly yielding its gold in exchange for sweat and blood.
As the weary men finished up their dinner around the campfire, they heard a distant noise. A drawn out noise unlike anything the experienced outdoorsmen had ever heard. They knew the sounds of every animal in the wild and this noise was definitely strange to them. Slasher's ears perked up and he let out a low growl as he stared into the blackness beyond the light of the campfire. Their profiles glimmered in the fire glow as they listened and waited.
Suddenly the deep moan was closer and more definite. It haunted the darkness of the woods and made their hair stand on end. The waiting and listening only added to the tension. The men checked the actions on their firearms and added more firewood. The noise eventually waned and the miners retired to salvage what sleep they could for the night.
The next year, the brothers made the same treacherous journey and decided to explore an area called Sulfide Creek. In the canyon at the headwaters of the creek the men observed a giant brown bear on the far side. Upon seeing the men, the bear made a line straight toward them. Jack immediately emptied his rifle into the charging bruin, but the bear made it across the raging creek and lifted itself onto the bank, despite an obviously broken back. Jack then pulled his sidearm and completely emptied the click into the bear just before it slipped on the bank and tumbled into the raging current to be swept away. Upon returning downstream to their boat, the men found the oars splintered and their boat with a gaping hole in the hull. All of this damage was apparently done by a bear.
The Johnstone brothers returned the next year and pitched a temporary camp in a flat area and started setting up their sleeping arrangements. In the middle of the night Jack was awakened to see a gigantic dark shape silently approach him while in his sleeping bag. He slowly reached for his rifle but Slasher flashed to their defense. The dog and bear hastily chased each other into the bush surrounded by a cacophonous eruption of barking, growling and gravel and bushes snapping.
Later in the fall of the same year the men investigated the river shore near the camp and found it strewn with partially consumed salmon carcasses and bear skat and tracks. The previous night they were stirred from slumber by the now familiar and eerie groaning noises which faded as the animal departed the area. The brothers went to examine a discovered quartz deposit near their camp. As they returned to camp Slasher raced into the bushes immediately behind where they had just spent a considerable amount of time examining the quart deposit. They could not see the bear but heard the growling and saw the bushes thrashing as the bear and Slasher confronted each other. Immediately following the incident the familiar groaning sound started up once again as the bear was persuaded to leave. The brothers had to seriously consider the possibility that the bear had been silently lying in ambush for them to get within striking distance.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain in Central California. The Sierra Nevada’s are one of the highest and most prestigious mountain ranges in the world and serve as the spine of California running from the Mexican border all the way to around the Oregon border. The giant granite peaks seem to touch the sky and host hundreds of miles of largely uninterrupted fur and pine forests. At the time of our incident there were no highways crossing the high mountain passes and assistance was often too far away to help.
John Adams was born in 1812 in Medway, Massachusetts and made his way to California when he was 37 years old after his shoe business failed due to fire. He left his family and made his way to the wilds of California to become a trapper, miner and hunter. Having nearly died from 2 illnesses during his trek he arrived in California in mid December.
He utilized his knowledge gained as an animal trainer and hunter in New England to make his own buckskins, moccasins, harness, saddles and snowshoes and with help from the Miwok Indians built a cabin and stable to winter over.
In 1853 he navigated around 1200 miles on one of his hunting and trapping expeditions clear up to the eastern portion of the Washington Territory. While out on an excursion he discovered a female yearling cub and quickly caught her. He moonlighted as an animal trainer and would sometimes catch animals and sell them to circuses or other menageries. He named her Lady Washington. Incredibly he eventually tamed Lady Washington and she became his constant sidekick. He even rode on her back and she cuddled him in freezing conditions keeping him warm. Later on, Lady Washington would have a tryst in the Rocky Mountains and have a cub Adams would name General Freemont.
A year later Grizzly, as he came to be known, pulled two 2 week old cubs from a grizzly sows den while she hibernated in the Yosemite Valley. He raised the cubs himself and one of them stuck around long enough to be named Ben, after Benjamin Franklin. Adams and Ben were quickly inseparable and Ben would follow Adamas anywhere he went.
The odd couple were once traveling through the Sierra Nevadas and came across a sow with three cubs. This sow was first of all offended that there was a man nearby, and compounding her offense, a boar bear to boot. The sow rushed Adams and quickly swatted his rifle out of his hands, with her left paw, before he had a chance to fire. Then with her right paw knocked him flailing landing face down. She then dug her huge canines into the flesh on his back and tore flesh, buckskin and flannel shirt from his body. Just in the nick of time, the yearling Ben, joined the fight and chomped onto her haunches. She spun around and dug her teeth into Ben's skull, blinding him in one of his eyes. Then she used her paws to crush him into the ground, while she brutally bit into his shoulder to lift him off the ground and shake him violently back and forth. The wounded Adams had the luxury of watching the two bears square off but the heartbreak of watching his best friend Ben be wounded and beaten. By then the man had gathered himself enough to lift his rifle and drive a bullet home through the sow's heart, stopping the brutality for once and for all. Ben healled eventually and the two continued on with their life in the woods. The record does not indicate what became of her three cubs but I assume Adams merged them into his menagere.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! This weekend's episode takes us to familiar territory. If you have watched our previous stories on Olga Moskalyova, Vitaly Nikolyenko and Alexey Ivanovski then you will know we are talking about the Russian Far East. We are returning to Kamchatka to a beautiful place called Lake Kurilskoye. As you can see by our map, we are now near the center of 5 cases regarding attacks we have previously discussed. The Sankebetsu Bear attack on Hokkaido, The Kinshur Island attack, the Olga Moskalyev attack, the Vitaly Nikolenko attack and the topic of today's episode. If you are picking up on a pattern here, you are not the only one. These islands are some of the most sparsely populated areas, yet we have documented some of the most tragic, violent and unfortunate bear attacks ever. After today’s episode you may agree with me, that this area of the world is most likely the most dangerous in regard to deadly bear attacks. The location is beautiful Lake Kurilskoye, with its clear waters and cool temperatures, it receives very few visitors each year. Any visitors that may find their way there might be photographers, researchers and possibly fishermen, otherwise you can count on solitude, peace and bears, lots of bears. Michio Hoshino is an extremely accomplished wildlife photographer, observer and researcher in his mid forties. He was born in Japan and moved to Alaska to photograph brown bears in the 70’s. His photos, videos and artwork have brought the farthest corners of the world into the canvas and lighting of galleries around the world. In 1996, he was hired to do photography on a documentary about brown bears. The first few days of filming went great, but on day three the photography crew lucked up on a very large male brown bear that did not mind the crew approaching within a few yards of him while he fished. The bear would simply ignore the crew and they recorded some amazing footage of the giant bruin as it gorged itself on salmon just a few meager yards away from their lenses. The next day they returned to the same spot, and there he was again. He seemed to relish the spotlight and played and showed off for the crews. He was not aggressive or threatening in any way, even though the photographers would sometimes approach within 5 yards to film him eating. The crew continued this for a third day and decided to make the hike to the lake to watch the big bear fish as part of their regular trip to gather footage. The big bear seemed content as he pulled in huge salmon and effortlessly tore them apart right in front of the crew. Some of these fish weighed about half as much as some of the men. It was on the fourth day, during the morning hike up the trail that the crew noticed large piles of scat close to their camp in the trail to the big bears fishing hole. They continued their hike and noticed his tracks and scat were placed over their boot tracks in the trail from when they returned to camp the prior day. Well, this is bear country and we are hiking on a bear trail, so a certain amount of that can be expected. The photography crew went on about their filming trek for the day, but when they got to the big bear's fishing hole, he wasn’t there. They were bummed but they could just return with a bunch of film of the same bear doing the same thing anyway. That would be boring. They finished up with a few shots of a sow and cubs that they watched for the afternoon and returned back to camp just before evening. As the men made it down the hill to the main trail back to camp, they noticed more bear scat. It was the big boar's tracks and this time his tracks were in their boot tracks from their hike up this morning.
Welcome back to scary bear attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the remote Siberian wilderness. A beautiful and wild place that we have visited in prior episodes, the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia’s far east. The area is known as the Kronotsky Wildlife Reserve not far from where our episode discussing Igor and Olga Moskalyova occurred. The geography of the peninsula is thick with alder and other scrub brush as well as groves of pine, fir and birch trees. Vitaly Nikolayenko was a 66 year old bear researcher. He was a self taught naturalist and wildlife photographer. This is his 33 year living with brown bears and documenting their mating rituals, social interactions and feeding habits. The bears tolerated him and his intrusion into their environment although he had to tumble down cliffs and climb trees to avoid charging bears at times. He was a senior ranger working on the reserve and would spend several months each year at remote locations performing his research. Vitaly was renowned among the bear research sphere of scientists filling hundreds of journals and thousands of pages with his observations, field notes and illustrations. He traveled an estimated one thousand kilometers per year through the wilderness of the reserve warding off poachers and illegal fishermen. Vitaly documented over 800 bear contacts per year and he knew many of the bears personally, if you will. His favorite was an older male he named “Dobrynya” whom he could curl up near, and sleep by, on occasion. The year 2003 was a peculiar year, in that the bears had not gone into hibernation by late December. It was most likely due to an environmental cause like a low salmon run or berry crop in the area. He was waiting for a helicopter out of the reserve for the season, from the warmth and safety of the park cabin he called home while on duty. While preparing some tea, Vitaly looked out the window and saw his old friend, Dobrynya walking right past the cabin on the bear trail. He grabbed his camera and his skis and followed the slow moving bruin toward the lake. He also brought his bear spray and his flare gun to scare the bear in case of a problem. Dobrynya slowly waddled his way up the snow covered trail a few hundred yards ahead of Vitaly. The man always enjoyed listening to his bear friend’s deep groans and rumbles as he was getting ready to rest, so Vitaly hurried to catch up. His cross country skis allowed him to stay on top of the snow and slide across the crust which helped him make up ground on the bear. It only took about a mile before Vitaly saw Dobrynya’s tracks entering into a thick grove of alders.
My family was held captive and harassed all night by a young male black bear that no one could scare off or catch.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today's episode takes us to Santa Monica, California. Yes! I am not joking. Not the town of today but a century and a half ago. Before the freeways and high rise buildings of today, Santa Monica was a seaside bear haven and yes, some of those bears were Grizzly bears.
In 1853 the area may have had about 100 people and was starting to be farmed by Mexican settlers. The local plant life was an assortment as diverse as box elder and maple to salt bush and manzanita. The temperatures were very steady without a frost and rarely going above 90 degrees. This is the perfect environment for many different plant species and animals. One of those animal species that thrived in the area were brown bears.
Andy Sublette was 46 years old on December 19th and enjoyed hunting bears and many other animals in the area. He was very proficient and was known in the area as a good guy to have around the ranch to keep the many predators from eating livestock.
The winters in Santa Monica were less humid than the summers and consequently there was less fog. The heat wasn't as bad so it made for easy and satisfying hunting. It wasn't hard to find enough deer to keep the pot filled, but Andy really enjoyed finding and harvesting those giant brown bears that lived in the area. Their hide made great rugs and could be sold for a fair price and the meat wasn't too bad either.
Andy and a few of his friends decided to head up above the hills beyond the beach and see what kind of luck they may be able to find. They each decided to hunt a different area and split up accordingly. Andy, and his dog Mick, followed a low ridge above a small creek which was overgrown with Manzanita and Alder. The thick brush made for a great place for animals to hide but also granted Andy great cover as he searched for game. Typically the hunting trips weren't really long as the game was plentiful and success was nearly inevitable any time hunters went out.
As Andy crossed the top of a low ridge, he could see a large brown mound slowly strolling across the hill opposite the creek. The hillside was covered with a new crop of clover which the bear was munching a path through. Andy knew this was a great opportunity to harvest a large animal that would provide a lot of meat and a great hide, so he crept into shooting position and began to aim for the bear's vital area.
He rested his rifle across a tree limb for support and fired. The bear immediately tossed and turned in pain, then dashed into the bush where Andy could no longer see him. Mick bolted down the hill and immediately started barking at the bottom of the draw. Andy could hear the bear rustling around in the bush a bit and waited to see if it might show itself for a second shot. He reloaded and kept watching and waiting for an opportunity. The bear didn't run far and didn't quit making noise moving around as Mick continued to bark at him.
After about 45 minutes of waiting, Andy decided to sneak down to where he heard the rustling to see if the bear had died yet. He hadn't heard a death moan, which is characteristic when a bear dies. It is almost a sad lament from the bear and can be heard from a few hundred yards in distance. He began sneaking through the underbrush toward where he had heard the rustling. The brush was parched at this point in the year due to the dry Santa Anna winds and that didn't help Andy, as he could no longer hear anything but crunching and crackling.
Andy had traveled about 80 yards toward the rustling noise, when Mick began to growl. Andy continually pointed his rifle in the direction he had heard the rustling, but wasn't aware of the fact that he had just passed the location. He walked right beside the injured bear which took cover in a small gulley.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the beautiful and scenic mountain environs in the Flathead National Forest in Northwestern Montana. The rugged Rocky Mountains tower near the horizon and Flathead Lake shimmers in the sunlight. The mountains are predominantly granite in composition and are covered in pine, fir and aspen trees.
The Outer Trail of the Green Gate Trail System is an exciting network of trails that hikers and mountain bikers traverse frequently this time of year. The trail is right at 10 miles long and is an easy ride for mountain bikers within an hour or so.
Brad Treat was a Forest Service Ranger and he and wife owned a home that granted them immediate access to the trail system. This location was prime for them as they enjoyed jogging on the mountain trails every morning together.
It was a warm day on June 19th, 2016 around 2 PM and Brad and his wife’s cousin, whom we will call Chuck, decided to ride the trail together for Chuck’s first ever mountain bike ride. Since they were riding they did not need to take firearms or cell phones and decided to leave the bear spray at home too. They rode fast, as Brad knew the trail very well. Brad was leading the way and was speeding around a blind corner with Chuck about 30 yards behind.
Brad was traveling at about 30 miles an hour and zipped around a bend and down a slope in the trail that was obscured by brush. The plants alongside the trail smear into a dappled green blur at this speed and before Brad could react, he slammed into something huge and dark. He flipped over his handlebars and landed hard with his arms outstretched, breaking both of his wrists and shattering his right scapula on impact.
Chuck heard the impact of Brad riding into the bear and heard the bear let out an anguished moan as if injured, but could not see the incident yet.
As Brad glanced up from the ground, a huge boar grizzly bear came into focus and he yelled “bear!”. Brad yelled for Chuck twice as the bear straddled him and bit and severely clawed his neck and face. The reactionary attack was done so quickly that Brad was dead in an instant.
Chuck slid to a stop a short distance away and could see the grizzly standing over Brad and facing away from him. The bear was focused on Brad and didn’t acknowledge Chuck’s arrival at all. He quickly assessed what he should do and decided to go get help. He turned back around and pedaled all the way back to find help. Chuck notified authorities of the occurrence and a recovery party was established.
The recovery party arrived at the scene of the confrontation and could see Brad’s corpse lying in the trail just as described and his helmet was shattered and bitten into pieces around him. The bear consumed no part of Brad’s body which confirmed the authorities conclusion that this was strictly a defensive attack by the bear. This was confirmed by the fact that the bear never buried Brad’s body nor came back to it after the incident.
The bear's DNA was gathered from Brad’s body and was on file with the Park Services. The bear was not euthanized due to the defensive nature of the attack and the lack of any other incidents with humans. The bear was a 20 year old male.
Run-ins with bears are much more common for mountain bikers than hikers and authorities recommend slowing down, carrying bear spray and staying vigilant. Brad Treats death was the first incident of a mountain biker being attacked and killed by a grizzly bear in Montana.
Father and daughter hike through Glacier National Park and have to jump off of cliffs to save their lives.
Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the prestigious Rocky Mountains, to a little town called Ouray. The rigorous landscape consists of steep, boulder strewn mountainsides with lush pine forests, the perfect environment for sightseeing, and black bears. Water resources are abundant as well deer, elk and various berry bushes and nuts for bears to eat and nurture their offspring from. A popular tourist destination, the Colorado backcountry is replete with people. Hikers, skiers, hunters and campers frequently crowd the primitive areas bears prefer to live in, so sightings and confrontations are a possibility. Educated and experienced travelers are prepared with either firearms, bear spray or both.
Donna Munson was a 74 year old single female retiree and widow who lived four miles north of town and enjoyed her space, as well as her local wildlife. Her husband had passed away about 14 years prior to her attack so she was alone, with the exception of her periodic renters. She navigated her property with the support of a walker and was losing her vitality to age.
She befriended squirrels, birds, deer, elk and even skunks and frequently fed them from her porch or windows in her home. She even had visits from the local black bear population and particularly enjoyed their visits. She would set out dog food and bird seed for the area animals to eat as she watched from the relative safety of her fenced in elevated deck. Donna was too frail to carry the big bags of dog and cat food, so she engineered a pulley system that would allow to lift the bags up to her deck. The animals essentially developed into her social interactions for each day and she believed she understood them and had developed a personal rapport with them. They were her friends and she believed she knew them well enough to trust them.
As the years went on and she would see new individuals come and then go, the authorities began to look closely at what was going on near her home. They cautioned her against the illegal act of feeding wildlife of all kinds, as well as the dangers of feeding bears. She became so accustomed to receiving their certified letters and phone calls instructing her to stop feeding animals at her home that she began ignoring the warnings and cautions. Authorities began building a case to file charges against Donna, but the wheels of justice turn very slowly and require time to accumulate evidence. Donna had also been informed that any bears seen feeding at her home would be euthanized. Afterall, it isn’t that only bears can be dangerous once they get accustomed to regular feeding from a single source. Animals as peaceful in appearance as deer and elk have attacked people whenever they are no longer afraid of humans.
Donna’s neighbors had approached her on a few occasions after learning she was feeding the bears from her home. They expressed strong opposition to this practice as they had been seeing more and more bears in their neighborhood and in the hills surrounding the area. Some of these bears had started to approach humans for food and even acting aggressively toward them. Neighbors reported seeing as many as 14 bears at one time on her property.
A short on the recent bear attack on Craig Cloutre just north of Yellowstone National Park.
John Wallace was mauled and eaten by a grizzly bear that previously killed Brian Matayoshi but was tagged and released.
Aydee simply took her dog out for a walk and was attacked by a black bear sow who had three cubs with her. A bear in a neighborhood is never a good thing.
Brian Matayoski were attacked by a grizzly bear while hiking in Yellowstone National Park. Their harrowing story is narrated for your pleasure.
Jay Reeves was photographing in the back country of Alaska and was pulled from his tent at night. His harrowing story is told in this episode.