The Great Outdoors Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who love being outdoors enjoying nature and wilderness, and learning about the required skills and equipment. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Even if I was to follow the advice of letting bears know I am in the area, keeping my cooking and anything that smells at least 100m from my camp & downwind, etc, suppose a bear finds my tent and likes the smell of it.
What do I do? Suppose I do have a means of defending myself (maybe a canister of bear spray and/or a gun of some description)?
I've been up close with grizzly and black bears before, I've had them come sniffing through my camp and I've done nothing but lay quiet in my sleeping bag and wait for them to wander off, which they usually do. Most of the time I don't even know they were there, I just find their tracks the next morning.
Believe it or not bears spook really easily. I've never had to use bear spray or shoot at a bear, they always run off as soon as we let them know we're getting close. So if you're in your tent and a bear is taking his time investigating your site, all you have to do most of the time is just announce yourself and that should be enough to scare them away. The human voice is the number one deterrent for bears, so just start making loud noises.
This will work most of the time, but the real problem bears are the ones that are used to humans, especially the ones that have been fed by humans in the past or found food in camps before, if one of these bears wanders into you site and doesn't act like it intends to leave without first finding something to eat, then get your bear spray out, get out of the tent, act big and keep shouting. You need to be pretty close for bear spray to be effective (30ft/9m or closer) so only spray it if your other attempts don't work and the bear is approaching you, or letting you approach him. Do NOT spray it inside of your tent, you will immediately regret it and possibly do yourself some serious harm. Try to get upwind of the bear if possible, and aim for his nose. One good blast and that bear should take off real quick.
Most people only cary one or the other, bear spray or a gun. A warning shot from a gun does just as good as bear spray does. People around here (Canadian Rockies) that hike with shotguns load it with 3 different types of ammo; the first round is just bird shot, to shoot in the air as a warning shot; the second shot is a slug, to shoot past the bear so he can hear the ball whistling past him; the rest of your rounds are all hollow-point bear stoppers, to put the beast down, because if the first two shots don't scare him away then nothing else is going to stop him.
Hunters have bigger problems with bears than campers do, because hunters typically have a fresh kill with them that the bear wants (usually grizzly bears), with campers and hikers, it's usually a case of the hikers sneaking up on the bear unintentionally and surprising it-in which case the bear acts defensively- or bears happening upon a campsite because it's on the side of a trail (bears use trails too) and finding food there.
Shotguns are only necessary if the bear charges, tries to get into your tent, or is following you and you can't shake them off your trial. This is especially true with black bears, if a black bear is following you, and isn't scared off by any of your attempts to get him to leave, then odds are good you're going to have to either fight it off or shoot it, because there have been incidents where black bears have been known to stalk people for food. These incidents are very rare, and will typically only occur in the most wild areas where bears don't have much contact with humans.
... suppose a bear finds my tent and likes the smell of warm man-flesh inside of it.
Coming from bear country, if shouting at it doesn't scare it away and you have a gun, ten out of ten people where I'm from would say shoot it. Right through the tent. Don't even feel guilty about it, because if you don't shoot it, then a ranger probably will as soon as you report the encounter (assuming you managed to scare it off some other way). They don't tolerate bears that behave that way because they're a risk to people's safety. You've probably heard the saying, "A fed bear is a dead bear." They say that because 99% of the time, bears that get hand outs or find human food end up getting put down because they always come back for more.
If you have a bear trying to get in your tent, and you don't have a gun: FIGHT IT. You are literally fighting for your life, so kick, scream, hit it in the face with anything you've got. Bear spray will only work if there's nothing in between you and the bear, so try to get out of your tent before trying to spray it, or like I said already, you can actually make things worse for yourself if you spray it inside of your tent.
For Reference: To put it in perspective, deaths from black bear attacks in North America are about as common as shark attacks, and in many of the fatal encounters with black bears, the bear had fed on the victim.
People getting killed by black bears is exceedingly rare. There are roughly 1 per year in North America, and most of those in Canada and Alaska.
If you are in your tent at night and hear what you think is a black bear outside, the best thing to do is nothing. I have been in this situation a few times, and in all cases the animal (never saw it so can't confirm black bear) wandered off after a minute or two. They aren't interested in you. If it's a regular campsite, they may have learned that occasionally there are scraps of food to be found. They will sniff around and then leave if they don't find anything.
If you have bear spray with you (I didn't on any of these occasions), then get it ready in your hand. That's not because you'll need it to defend yourself, but it will make you feel a little more secure so that you're less likely to do something stupid that will get you into trouble.
In the unlikely event that the bear starts poking at your tent, make loud sounds. Yell at it at the top of your lungs. Unless this happens to be the 1 in 1,000,000 encounters where the bear is predatory, it will run off and leave you alone. In the very unlikely event it is a predatory bear, use the bear spray. However, you have to spray at the bear, not inside the tent. This requires you opening the tent, unless of course the bear has already ripped thru it. Seriously though, you are more likely to get hit by lightning than have a black bear break into your tent trying to harm you.
Leave the shotgun home. The chances are much greater that you'll have a accident and hurt yourself with it than getting hurt by any bear it might have stopped.
I have encountered black bears in the wild while hiking by myself at least three times that I can remember now (probably 4 or more if I thought about it some more). More accurately, those were times when I noticed the bear. Surely there were many more times when a bear noticed me that I wasn't aware of. Each time the bear ran off as soon as it saw me. To give you a better feel for black bears, where is what happened each time:
1 - Northern Yosemite National Park well out of the valley on a trail heading to Hetch Hetchy. I saw a bear about 50 feet in front of me standing sideways across the trail. It saw me about 1/2 second after I saw it. It immediately ran off sideways, and I could hear it running thru the forest for a good distance. The total visual encounter was maybe 1 second.
2 - On top of Mormon Mountain in north-central Arizona, Coconino National Forest. I was standing in the middle of a dirt road and saw a bear cross the road maybe 100 feet in front of me. I stood still and it didn't notice me. It came diagonally closer by going off the road but also partway in my direction. It found a old rotted log 50 feet from me and started clawing at it and was breaking it apart, most likely looking for grubs. I had a camera with me and was going to take its picture, but thought I'd pick up a nice size rock first. I tried to do this when the bear had its back turned, but it caught my movement anyway and ran off so quickly I couldn't get the camera to my eye and focus before it got out of sight into the forest. Again I heard it running some distance into the forest.
3 - On the road down from Mt Greylock in northwestern Massachusetts. It was dusk and I saw a dark blob maybe 200 feet ahead. I thought it might be a bear, but it was too far and too dark to be sure. I kept walking and at maybe 100 feet I could tell it was definitely a bear. As I was deciding what, if anything, I should do about it, the bear saw me and ran up the steep slope at the side of the road. I couldn't see it after it entered the woods, but could hear it running up the slope a ways. Although I tried, I did not see the bear again as I hiked on the road past the spot it had been.
Black Bears simply don't like the smell of warm man-flesh; in fact, if one notices you, it's likely to take off. I've had bears sniffing around my camp before. Assuming all your food is safely stored already and you don't need to scare it off to protect your supplies, a perfectly valid option is just to stay still, and wait until the bear leaves. If you want to encourage the bear's departure, making a lot of noise is an effective deterrent as well. Shout, bang metal together, etc. If the bear is still sticking around, getting out of the tent, and waving your arms while shouting will be likely to drive away most black bears. In a properly secured camp, bear spray - let alone a firearm - are unlikely to be necessary.
I would make noise to confirm the bear is aware of my presence. I would try to gently get out of the tent and take some distance (10 feet / 3 meters) from the bear and tent acting normally. And I would wait it out.
I ran into this situation once and this worked out just fine for me.
Personally I would not use the shotgun or bear spray. If I had the bear spray with me, I would only use it if the bear charges towards me which is unlikely.
I believe the key points are:
Wild bears don't like the smell of warm man-flesh. So, you're inside your tent, make some noise, move around, talk. The bear will go away. You don't need to use your shotgun, you don't need to use your bear spray.
