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Preface CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FURRED KIND Existing bear safety books and videos have many strengths and a few weaknesses. They are very well suited to bears in regions where people abound but salmon are scarce. They are less applicable to the Pacific northwest where people are scarce and salmon or other anadramous fish are a major component of bear diets. Foraging on those fish shapes ursine ecology, social behavior, and relations with people. It also shapes human behavior. Consequently, staying safe from bears in salmon country requires somewhat unique approaches. Hence this book. It focuses on Alaska for three reasons. First, this is the region I know best, and where salmon-country safety techniques have been most thoroughly tested – in part by viewing guides and biologists like myself who have each had many thousand close encounters. Second, Alaska is so diverse ecologically that it encompasses most of the kinds of habitat found in the western provinces of Canada. Third, much of Alaska is at the opposite end of the safety-challenge spectrum from salmon-poor parts of the continent. Anyone comparing this book with manuals by other authors should be able to quickly recognize which ways of staying safe would work best in any intermediate region of the continent. In part because of Alaska’s salmon, there’s almost no place in the Great Land where you can go without “risk” of running into a bear. Bruins occupy nearly every kind of habitat from mountain peaks down to the sea. They also follow wooded streambanks into the heart of even our largest cities. Similar things happen, to a lesser extent, in parts of Canada, as well as some northern regions of the contiguous United States even at latitudes as low as Lake Tahoe and Mammoth in California. * * * In the right circumstances, bears can be wonderful to watch; but most of the time, wise people prefer remaining a few hundred yards away. Even avid wildlife watchers are well advised to avoid encounters while fishing, hiking and camping – circumstances where people are most likely to either surprise a bear at close range or to end up in conflict over food. Imagine how easily that might happen: You are on the famed Russian River of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The dream of a lifetime. Thousands of red salmon flood the waters nearby, just waiting for your hook. Standing in the shallows beside a shady riverbank, you cast and reel, cast and reel, intent on the perfect placement of your fly. Sooner or later, it must, it will, prove irresistible. Water will swirl, the fly will disappear. The fight will begin. Geese honk as they pass overhead. Moose graze contentedly on shoreline herbs. Two hundred yards downstream, a grizzly sow with three tiny cubs emerge from the alders. Momma bear wades into the river and begins fishing while her triplets watch hungrily. Aware of you, but unconcerned, the sow thinks of little but feeding her babies. She usually focuses on fishing, but stops now and then to nurse her cubs while you watch spellbound through binoculars. Heaven on Earth. World class fishing. Spectacular mountain scenery. Awesome wildlife! Now, more than at any other time in your life, you have it all. Cast and reel, cast and reel, you move with the grace and precision of a Karate sensei, poised for the moment of lethal contact. Suddenly, your pole snaps forward. Line screams off the reel as a Sockeye fights for freedom. But all in vain. For this fish is yours! You adjust reel drag and let the line go, tiring the Red until it has to turn and rest. Frantically, you pull and reel, pull and reel, taking up slack before the line can snag on a submerged boulder. Everything works. Every bit of skill, every bit of knowledge comes together. You outwit and out maneuver the fish. Finally, desperately, it breaks water. More than twenty-five inches long, the Sockeye leaps skyward, whipping its head back and forth, trying to throw the hook. But to no avail; once more, you do everything right.  For most people, fishing is sport. For bears, it can be a matter of life and death. (Drawing by Gerald Trombley) Again and again, the salmon leaps. And with every leap it weakens. Finally, inexorably, you work it closer as exhaustion erodes its will to fight. Increeeeedible! You’ll have salmon steaks as well as a fantastic trophy for your mantle. You can hardly wait! Neither can the grizzly sow. Normally gentle and shy, she is famished from eight months of hibernation and nursing insatiable youngsters. The splash of your salmon is a sound she can’t resist. Just as surely as your line has drawn the salmon, so too this salmon has drawn the bear – whose approach remains unnoticed by you. However, no sooner do you start scooping the Sockeye up in your dipnet, than a bloodcurdling roar shatters the afternoon adventure and you turn in terror to see the sow just twenty yards away, sprinting toward you, intent on stealing your trophy. When I wrote that imaginary scenario about someone being charged by a sow grizzly on the Russian River, I had no premonition of how soon something like that would happen. Barely two months later, in exactly that area, Dan Bigley was seen by a sow whose cubs had allegedly just been stoned by someone else. Bites to Dan’s face permanently blinded and nearly killed him. Dan himself did nothing to provoke or attract this bear. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. That can happen to anyone, and when it happens, it can have horrific consequences–especially if you, like Dan, are unprepared to protect yourself. Paul Miller and his wife were luckier than Dan. Paul, a veteran outdoorsman, is owner of the Soldotna Trustworthy Hardware store, and a sponsor of our bear safety program. Each summer for many years, he and his family have fished the Kuskatan River, about 50 miles beyond Soldotna, on the western side of Cook Inlet. Abundant bear scat and tracks always testify to the river’s heavy use by salmon-hungry bruins; but the bears themselves are seldom seen. During one exceptional year, however, a sow and her twin cubs happened upon Paul and his wife. As soon as the couple saw the bears gradually working their way upstream, Paul began reviewing options for self-defense. With no trees to climb or anywhere else to escape, they had to just stand their ground on a gravel bar on the river’s edge – the only place the bears could see them from far enough away not to feel intolerably crowded. While his wife took their 44-magnum pistol, Paul readied his 12-gauge shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot (rifled slugs are even better–Chapter 10). Suddenly, the streamside willows parted and they were confronted by two surprised and agitated cubs that ran back and forth along the riverbank. As soon as Momma appeared, she began showing signs of both fear and anger. Less than 8 yards away, she huffed, rapidly jaw-popped, and occasionally roared while hopping with her forelegs or clawing the ground in redirected aggression, as she whipped her head from side to side, flinging copious saliva for yards in each direction. Only after a seeming eternity of indecision did the sow turn and lead her family upstream through the willows for 50 yards, then across the river. * * * Aggression is especially common when a grizzly stumbles on someone like Paul, or when a person crowds a grizzly/ brown bear that does not have an opportunity or a willingness to avoid the encounter. This happens, for instance, when someone is jogging or biking down a trail or quietly floating down a creek. There are numerous cases, for example, of grizzlies charging out into a stream toward people in a passing boat. Fortunately, on both occasions I’ve surprised bears this way, they have been amazingly tolerant. The first incident occurred during the summer of 1972. I had been invited to do one of the first studies of bears at Katmai National Park. As an avid angler, I was eager to supplement my diet with fresh salmon. Unfortunately, all the monofilament line I’d brought along was for 1-2 pound (0.5-1.0 kg) trout, not for salmon 5-fold that big. My line broke every time I hooked a fish. Finally down to my last hook, and not looking forward to a week of fasting, I was desperate to make sure of catching at least one salmon. When I hooked the next fish, I didn’t dare play it from the streambank. Instead, to lessen strain on the line, I jumped into the river and floated downstream. I floated at least a quarter-mile before the fish wore itself out and I was able to reel it ashore in triumph. During my downstream float, I passed a number of brown bears fishing along the shore. Although I was almost terrified that one would attack, they all just watched me float by, then went back to fishing. In fact, the only person that got excited was a German tourist – who ended up carrying the story back to Germany and Austria where I was dubbed the “Alaska Tarzan” – something I didn’t know until I arrived there a year later to research Alpine wildlife on a hunting estate frequented by European royalty and ultra-rich industrialists. (But that is the story for another book, Loneliness is a Motherless Moose.)  (Drawing by Gerald Trombley) I was equally fortunate a few years ago while rafting down a narrow creek. As the current carried my raft around a bend, I passed a brown bear lying on its back, with its head upside down against the ground. The only part of her that moved was her head as she watched me drift past just 3 yards away. I hadn’t even passed out of sight before she closed her eyes and seemingly began to doze. I have never tempted ursine fate on purpose and seldom due to carelessness. But I have tempted it by accident. I survived those accidents because few bears really go looking for trouble, and because these particular bears knew me, trusted me and respected me. Also, I was lucky. Luck is fine, but it can’t be depended on. I’d much rather rely on preparation, skill and diligence. I hope you will be equally prudent. With reasonable effort, you can minimize risk without sacrificing opportunities to enjoy some of the finest angling, hunting, hiking, camping and wildlife viewing opportunities in North America. Risk control begins with wisdom. The more you know about an animal, the more predictable it will become to you; and the more you will be able to avoid encounters--your first line of defense--or to control their outcomes. This book focuses on avoidance, with the goals of minimizing both risks to people and human impacts on bears. If you don’t share one of those goals, then disregard corresponding advice. Chapter 1 teaches cues for distinguishing grizzly/brown bears from black bears, as well as the differences between grizzly and brown bears. Being able to tell them apart can be critical, given that grizzly/ brown bears are at least 100 times more dangerous than blackies, and grizzlies are even more dangerous than brownies. Chapter 2 maps geographic distributions of grizzly, brown, black, and polar bears. Chapter 3 explains precautions you can use as soon as you arrive in bear country. Chapter 4 explains ways to avoid bumping into bears or having them bump into you while you are hiking or traveling in an unmotorized boat. Chapter 5 presents ways you can avoid attracting bears or letting them sneak up on you while you are fishing, whether you are on foot or in a boat. Chapter 6 shows how you can avoid bears while camping. For example, it explains how you can cook, store food, and dispose of wastes without attracting bears. Then it explains how you can secure your camp against bears through use of an electric fence and perimeter alarms. Chapter 7 recalls the wonders of watching bears, and how this can be done safely if you follow the “Ten Golden Rules of Bear Viewing” – which are introduced here and elaborated in BVA’s next book When Bears Whisper, Do You Listen? Negotiating Close Encounters. Chapter 8 addresses risks while viewing other wildlife. Chapter 9 reviews ways that you can minimize risks while hunting. Chapter 10 introduces various methods for appeasing, intimidating, deterring or killing an aggressive bear that could not be avoided. Additional information is available at bear-viewing-in-alaska.info.