"Research clearly demonstrates that the normal response of grizzly bears is to avoid people and not to act aggressively or to attack, even if a person suddenly appears nearby."(13)

"During the 1970s the grizzly bear-inflicted injury rates in the most heavily visited national parks in the United States where grizzlies live were one injury per 1.3 million visitors in Glacier Park, Montana, and one injury per 1.5 million visitors in Yellowstone. Injury rates to backcountry visitors are higher. During the early 1970s they ranged from one injury per 2620 backcountry use days in Mt. Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks in Canada to one injury per 59,300 backcountry use days in Yellowstone National Park."(16)

"Hiking prior to being attacked was the most common circumstance associated with injury (from a grizzly) (50 percent, or 68 out of 135 incidents in which the party’s activity prior to injury was known). In injurious encounters preceded by hiking, the persons injured were seldom aware of the bear until within fifty-five yards or less…. I assume that the surprise was mutual in most of these cases since grizzlies normally flee, or at least avoid contact when a person approaches. Therefore, I describe these incidents as being ‘sudden encounters,’ although it is possible that in some of these incidents the bear had either stalked the person injured or heard the person coming from a distance and waited or approached."(22)

"Sudden encounters leading to human injury usually did not last long. Good data on the duration of such attacks were only available for thirteen incidents. All of these ended in less than ten minutes, and 54 percent (7 out of 13) were over in less than two minutes. The short duration of these encounters is consistent with my view that grizzlies attacking under these circumstances are responding to a perceived threat and, when they have dealt with it, they leave."(22)

"Grizzly bear mothers were responsible for 74 percent (20 out of 27) of all incidents that I regarded as sudden encounters and where records exist of the age/sex class of the bear."(22)

"A grizzly bear rearing onto its hind legs, a common stance, is trying to sense what is happening. Normally this is not an aggressive posture…. Standing on its four legs a grizzly may show agitation by swaying its head from side to side, making huffing noises, or by opening and closing its mouth and making clacking noises with its teeth. Running and circling, usually to get downwind, may follow to get into a better position to sense (especially smell) the strange object. If the bear feels threatened, fleeing or a charge may follow. The seriousness of a grizzly’s charge is usually indicated by the position of its ears. Like wolves and dogs, grizzly and black bears use the position of their ears as an indication of aggressive intent. Generally speaking, the farther back the ears are, and the more they are flattened to the neck, the more the grizzly is aroused. In combination with this, the hair may be raised on the back of the neck and on the front portions of the back."(23)

"There are data documenting that a loud growl or deep gurgling was the noise that most often accompanied charges that led to injury."(23)

"If you are attacked by a grizzly bear following a sudden encounter, I recommend that you passively resist by playing dead."(23)

"After being attacked in a sudden encounter, or perhaps when a charging grizzly is just about to contact you, a person should assume a position that will minimize exposure of vital areas and parts of the body where such attacks normally focus. I recommend the position of hands behind the neck, fingers interlocked, with the forearms and elbows protecting the face as best as possible. A bear’s bite can break or crush the face or neck, but its jaws won’t open wide enough to crush the skull of an adult. The knees should be drawn up to the face- the fetal position. Hands interlocked around the knees with the face, especially the eyes, buried in the knees would also be a good position, except that this doesn’t protect the neck. Lying flat on the ground, face down, with your hands locked behind your neck is another possibility."(28)

"During sudden encounter attacks, the face and skull commonly receive injury…. Attacks are usually directed to the head probably because during aggressive encounters between grizzly bears they frequently bite each other’s faces and heads, trying to grab the opponent’s jaws in order to disable their primary weapon."(28-29)

"You should not play dead before you are attacked unless a charging grizzly is extremely close and you feel certain that an attack is imminent. While standing, you have options such as dodging to avoid attack. I know of several cases in which people have successfully dodged attack by dropping an object, such as a camera, to distract the bear and give themselves time to climb a tree, or by using clothing to redirect an attack away from the body, or by keeping trees between themselves and an attacking bear."(29)

"The active person in a group typically draws the brunt of an attack after a sudden encounter. This suggests that if a companion were being severely mauled you might shout or wave your arms to draw the attack to yourself, and then play dead after being attacked. This tactic has frequently worked."(29)

"One of the most dangerous situations in which to come nose to nose with a grizzly is when it is feeding on or is near a carcass."(31)

"If a carcass is left overnight (by a hunter) in grizzly country, it should be approached the next day with the assumption that a grizzly has discovered it. Come in on horseback or by vehicle if possible. Make lots of noise from a safe distance before approaching. A grizzly may have dragged the carcass a short distance or buried it. The bear will probably be close by. If the situation looks suspicious, it is safest to abandon the kill."(35)

"Photographers can easily provoke grizzlies because they normally must get close to one. Photographers who specialize in grizzlies know that the safest way to approach for a picture is to let the bear sense them when they are still far away before beginning a slow, deliberate, and obvious approach."(41)

"I do not recommend that anyone try to take grizzly bear photographs at closer than one thousand feet, and even this distance can be dangerous under certain circumstances. I personally do not like to photograph grizzlies- not only because of the danger but also because to get photographs one has to harass the bear."(43)

"Provocation is also clearly present when a person’s dog charges and barks at a grizzly prior to the person’s being injured."(49)

"Habituation combined with food conditioning has been associated with a large number of injuries. Inside the national parks it was probably the most frequent circumstance associated with injury."(52)

"Between 1967 and 1980, nine deaths occurred in Glacier, Yellowstone, and Banff National Parks. Eight of these deaths were caused by seven different grizzly bears, all of whom were habituated and food conditioned. The ninth incident was caused by a habituated grizzly bear that didn’t have a known history of feeding on people’s food or garbage."(54)

"Grizzly bears entering camp at night and methodically starting to chew on people, in contrast to grizzlies who charge and attack, are most likely acting as predators. The best resort in this case is to flee or fight back, depending on the circumstances."(59)

"Number 15 wasn’t an overly aggressive bear. It was a bear who had learned over many years that people and garbage, or trap sites, yielded food. Number 15 had lost some of its fear of people. Under cover of dark, and in the quiet of a sleeping camp, this lack of fear combined with unknown other factors and Roger May was attacked and killed."(72)

"Grizzly bears usually enter camping areas at a walk and at night. Before an attack, a person seldom sees any signs of aggression. Such attacks typically occur when there is too little light for a person to see. No single course of action can be recommended. If you are suddenly bitten while your body is bulging out the side of a tent, then perhaps the normal startled yell will be enough to let the bear know that you are a person and not a salami. Most campground marauding grizzlies still have enough ‘fear’ of humans that they will flee when discovered. But if you are camping in a remote area with a small party, the bear may press the attack. Under such circumstances playing dead would be akin to offering yourself to the bear. If you suspect a grizzly is about to eat you, you must do everything possible to deter the bear momentarily so you can escape. Shout at the bear. Throw things at or near it to try to distract it. Use every possible weapon or repellent you might have. Try to get somewhere that an attacking grizzly can’t go, such as high up a tree, on a fairly hard cliff to climb, or on a big boulder."(73)

"It is clear that close charges can occur without injury. Sometimes a person was charged again and again. In such incidents twelve parties were charged once, but three parties were charged three to six times, and Larry Tremblay (discussed earlier) was charged ten to twenty times- in every case without injury."(86)

"It is impossible to be precise about what a hiker should do if confronted by a rapidly approaching and apparently aggressive grizzly. Dropping a camera or other object may gain time. Especially if a bear is seeking food, it may stop to investigate the object. Drop a pack only if other objects aren’t available. Remember, if you are attacked a pack may help to protect your body. In sixteen cases hikers confronted by an aggressive grizzly dropped some object. In eleven of these cases (69 percent) the bear stopped and investigated the object. If trees are nearby and the bear is more than two hundred yards away, you may have time to climb a tree…. People climbed trees in seventeen cases out of the sixty-two noninjurious encounters with grizzlies. Try to climb the tree before, not after, the grizzly bear charges."(86)

If charged by a grizzly bear where trees and cover are unavailable, "some of your options are:
1. Stand your ground or move slowly away while trying to intimidate the bear by shouting, yelling, banging objects, setting off a repellent device (if you’re quick enough), or in the extreme hitting the bear;
2. Stand your ground or move slowly away but remain relatively quiet and attempt to be nonthreatening;
3. Immediately drop to the ground and play dead, or;
4. Run away.
Neither the data on noninjurious encounters nor my understanding of bear behavior permits me to strongly recommend any one course of action…. I don’t, however, recommend playing dead (unless an attack is imminent) or running away. Both actions keep you from watching the bear and responding to its actions. Running may only make the bear chase you."(87)

"Between 1960 and 1980, black bears injured over five hundred people. This may make them sound more ferocious than grizzlies, which they are definitely not. The large number of injuries is partly because there are about ten times as many black bears in North America as there are grizzlies. Also, over 90 percent of the recorded black bear-inflicted injuries were minor."(93)

"At least 90 percent of the injuries inflicted by black bears during the period between 1960 and 1980 I attribute to bears habituated to people and conditioned to eat human foods. Such bears will forage in campgrounds seeking out any edible garbage or inadequately stored food, even to the point of breaking into cars, where they can rip and twist the steel as if it were aluminum."(93)

"Sudden encounters with black bears, even mother with cubs, almost never lead to injury- further evidence of the bear’s tolerance for human beings. In a sudden encounter the black bear’s behavior is different from the grizzly’s. When a wild black bear suddenly encounters a person, it frequently will charge toward the person, swatting at the ground with a front paw or making loud, blowing noises. Although such actions may make your palms sweat and your legs shake, they are rarely followed by an attack. My records through 1980 show only four sudden encounters in which people were injured by female black bears with cubs. There were six injuries and no deaths. In these incidents the black bear mothers seemed to be defending their cubs."(99)

"In developed areas, however, where black bears have become habituated to people and accustomed to feeding on human food or garbage, there is evidence of increased danger from females with cubs."(103)

"Historical records exist of black bears having injured people who wounded, trapped, cornered, or otherwise harassed them, but I found only a few incidents since 1900 in which harassment appeared to have been an important circumstance associated with major injury."(103)

"Another feature of major injuries inflicted by black bears was that predation appeared to be the motive for eighteen of the twenty (90 percent) black bear-inflicted deaths. In these incidents the bears treated the people as prey. In the fifteen black bear-inflicted deaths for which data was available on the time of day of the attack, I discovered that fourteen (93 percent) of the fatal attacks took place during the day. This too contrasts with incidents of grizzly bear predation which typically occurred at night."(105-106)

"Of the twenty people killed by black bears, ten (50 percent) of the victims were age eighteen or under. Five were younger than ten years old, suggesting that young people may be more subject to fatal black bear attacks."(106)

"Rather I conclude it is mainly wild black bears found in rural or remote areas- where they have had relatively little association with people- that occasionally try to kill and eat a human being. This behavior must be exceedingly rare, since I have found so few records of it, given that the population of black bears in North America has probably never been less than my estimate of 500,000 +/- 200,000."(120)

"One final circumstance that may cause some black bears to attack and injure people is failure of natural food crops for the bears. Incidents of property damage by black bears increase during years of low production of wild berries on which the bears normally feed…. It would also not be surprising if, during years of food-crop failure when black bears are aggressively seeking human foods and garbage, they also were more likely to injure people. Scientific evidence of this actually happening is, however, weak."(120)

"If a black bear attacks in a campground or alongside a road, or in any place where many bears appear to be habituated to people, then the first assumption should be that the bear is attacking because you have gotten too close to it and it wants more space, or it is trying to get at food that you have. In the first instance simply backing away and watching the bear should end the attack. In the second case, in which a black bear is trying to get at your food and injures you, it is best to give up the food. A person who is very familiar with black bear behavior might choose to act aggressively and get the bear to back down, especially before it attacks. However, a black bear that has become so habituated to people that it will actually injure someone to get at food can be very difficult to deter."(121-122)

"The most dangerous black bear appears to be one that attacks a person that has been hiking, walking, berry picking, fishing, or playing during the day in a rural or remote area. The bear’s motivation in this unlikely event most often appears to be predation. The exceptions to this are the very rare instances of females with cubs in backcountry areas attacking to defend their offspring. In this case one should play dead or passively resist, as if a grizzly bear mother were attacking."(122)

"Curiosity is as much a part of a bear as is its fur. I’ve mentioned how young bears, and some older bears, inexperienced with humans, may approach humans or their belongings out of curiosity. Usually avoidance prevails and the curious bear flees when a person is sensed, but sometimes bears seem to bite tents, packs, coolers, cans, and even people just to see if such things are edible."(154)

"Bears normally eat the above-ground portions of green, herbaceous plants when the plants are in early growth stages. Growth typically occurs after the dormant winter period. During early stages of growth, the shoots, leaves and stems of most herbaceous plants and a few shrubs and trees are succulent, easily digested, and are high in nutrients compared to later growth stages when flowering, fruiting, or dormancy have occurred. Bears often move to, and forage in, areas where preferred plants are in early growth stages."(162-163)

"At high elevations, plants grow very rapidly, and this creates a greater percentage of protein in plant tissue compared to lower-elevation sites. Hence, during summer, bears prefer to feed at high elevations. Where black and grizzly bears coexist, the grizzly dominates the high country in summer and may completely keep out black bears."(163)

"Because moisture encourages a prolonged growing season and maintains succulence and nutrient levels in plants, moist meadows tend to produce green vegetation attractive to bears. This is true especially later in the season when sites having an early green-up have become dry…. In the mountains during the late spring and summer, but before berries are readily available, grizzly bears feed in moist meadows and other moist sites."(164)

"Both species of bears also frequently turn over rocks in search of insects."(168)

"Ungulate birthing grounds are places to be avoided or approached with care if grizzly bears also live in the area. Both black and grizzly bears can be significant predators on newborn ungulates…. Two injuries in Mt. McKinley Park were possibly caused by grizzlies which were ‘keyed up’ from hunting moose calves near the time of birthing."(168)

"Where available, berries and mast are some of the primary foods that bears fatten on in preparation for denning. When berries or mast are abundant, bear spend most of their time feeding on them or resting nearby…. [Favorite varieties of berry], depending on local availability, are mountain ash, salmonberries, devil’s club berries, wild sarsaparilla, raspberries, wild cherries, wild strawberries, wild cranberries, and crowberries."(170-1)

"Today the grizzly’s main source of mast comes from white-bark pine nuts in mountainous portions of Montana and small portions of nearby states."(172)

"Black bears are seldom found more than several hundred yards from cover. By contrast, grizzly bears don’t require as much cover as black bears. Normally if foods exist in open areas, such as extensive subalpine meadows, grizzlies will forage there…. For people, such as hunters, who travel through dense bush or forest, particular caution is needed in grizzly country. Grizzlies don’t expect to encounter people in such areas, hence surprise could lead to attack."(175)

"Whereas grizzlies typically den on mountain or other slopes, black bears normally den on the forest floor. Black bear dens are sometimes excavated under the roots of trees."(177)

"Unharassed black and grizzly bears travel routes of least resistance, usually following trails constructed by human beings, game trails, open edges, stream bottoms, shorelines, ridges, open forest, and even roads. If harassed or pursued, both species may take to areas where they don’t anticipate encountering people, such as dense shrub fields, closed forest, or swamps."(180)

"Sometimes, claw imprints are left in tracks. If there are claw imprints, then the longer distance between the toes and claw imprint left by a mature grizzly bear contrast with the shorter distance in a black bear track. The two most accurate characteristics for differentiating black and grizzly bear tracks are the arc of the toes and whether or not the toe imprints are joined. These characteristics are present in juveniles and adults and on front and hind feet. The toes of a black bear arc more, whereas the grizzly’s are more in a straight line…. Also, the toes of a grizzly bear are more joined together than are the toes of a black bear."(189)

"Because of the danger of surprising any grizzly bear at an animal carcass and because a grizzly may remain close by a carcass for up to two or even three weeks, you should learn to recognize the scats of bears that have been eating meat. When feeding on flesh, the bear leaves scats that are typically runny and black. Some hair may be present. Some scats passed after feeding on green vegetation may also be black, however they are fibrous rather than runny. Meat scats stink. Vegetation scats don’t."(194)

"The final bear sign to mention in the context of safety is rub-marking trees on which bears may rub, bite, or claw. Careful examination should reveal fresh bear hairs or sap running from recent wounds made by bear claws or teeth, or shredded bark with signs of cambium feeding."(197)

"some actions that people can take may be readily recognized by a grizzly in certain contexts: a direct stare with eye contact is an aggressive or dominance signal as is a loud, sharp shout or other loud noise. If a person has decided to try to intimidate a grizzly, then these may be appropriate actions. Conversely, by not staring and not making loud noise, you may be able to calm an agitated female with cubs."(221)

"If you have chosen to live surrounded by forest and bears, the outside garbage can should not be used except for nonfood items. Any foods or cans or bottles containing traces of food should be temporarily stored in the basement, root cellar, or elsewhere where bears can’t get access."(230)

"A strategy for protection against bears that most people are unaware of is locating dumps or homes so that they are surrounded by cleared areas. This type of location takes advantage of black bears’ reluctance to venture more than several hundred yards from forest or dense bush cover."(231)

"Cabins or houses located in bear country that are left unoccupied for more than a day or two might need tight fitting wooden shutters and strong doors. Any gap large enough for a bear claw is probably large enough for a bear to pull a shutter off or to rip a door open. Bears may also tear holes in walls or roofs to gain entry."(233-234)

"As in protecting beehives, electric fencing is the most effective solution for keeping bears away from your fruit. In the well planned orchard, trees are grouped and this permits efficient fencing. Other fruit crops, such as strawberries and raspberries, might as well be located nearby so as to be included in the same fence…. An alert and somewhat aggressive dog, which will locate, bark at, and chase bears approaching your fruits is invaluable."(235)

"Domestic animals are not as adept at escape from bears as are wild ungulates. Sheep are particularly easy prey and must be closely herded, watched, and preferably penned at night in bear country."(235)

"Cattle are less subject to predation than are sheep. As with predation on sheep, it is individual bears that become problems when they learn to kill domestic animals."(236)

"Both pigs and foods typically fed to pigs may attract bears. When pigs and other animals are slaughtered, bears may be drawn from a distance by the odor."(237)

"Coexistence should come to mean that bears and people jointly use some of the same environments but, to the greatest possible extent, that bears live without exploitation of our foods. Mutual avoidance, which in human terms means mutual respect, is a desirable end state. We need a sort of stand off between bears and people rather than the petting, feeding, and garbage eating that have characterized the past in some of our parks."(260)