Monthly Archives: March 2011

Bear Tales

A few weeks ago (February 2011) I stumbled across a review of Alaska Bear Tales on Amazon.com. Since the lady gave the book one star and said it was “one of the worst books on bears ever written,” I wondered about her rationale and read the review.

Some time after I read the review, I briefly reviewed my bear attack files and listed but a few situations involving bears attacking people…to the best of my knowledge, unprovoked. I sent an email to the lady in Hawaii suggesting I was happy for her success and safety among the Katmai bears and offered to send her a list of people who were not so fortunate. I’ve not heard from her but summarized the list below:

Black bear incidents:

Date Event

1963-1985 4 bears entered tents

1992-2010 7 entered houses

1949-2006 7 walking, hiking, jogging, biking

1991 2 Juneau ladies on subdivision sidewalks

1994 & 2002 2 infants snatched by bears

1991-1994 3 attacks upon workmen

1943, 1994, 1997 3 attacks upon swimmers

1960-2006 8 predatory, 4 fatal

 

Brown/grizzly incidents:

1972-2008 12 entered tents (4 fatalities)

Canadian college student killed bear in his house

1982-2007 5 camping

1949-2005 7 walking, hiking, jogging, biking

1988-2008 6 carrying or working on game animals

1950’s-2008 4 in villages

1961-1973 2 pulled men from trees

1953-1997 5 people working or picking berries

1958-1996 7 predatory

 

Polar incidents:

1970s-1993 2 job site

1990 1 village fatality

1994 2 Anchorage zoo (Binky in July and in September)

Man in the mask…

Two guys dialoging:

“So, who is that man with the mask?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Why, that’s Big Nasty.”
“Who’s Big Nasty?”
“You don’t know who Big Nasty is?”
“No.”
“Big Nasty is the masked man.”