| 1 | If you see a bear, run |
This is probably the oldest bear myth, most likely dating back to the dawn of time. Common sense says that if you notice a bear, you should pivot 180 degrees and flee from its turf as fast as possible. But this is actually a terrible idea, because the sight of rapid movements will activate a bear’s innate hunting instinct, just like with a lion. It will instinctively see you as its dinner, and soon after, the prophecy will fulfil itself and you will become its dinner.
Instead, you should back away slowly, while making steadily loud but not sharp noises. Most bears attack when spooked, so the idea is to prove that you’re not a threat. Avoid making eye contact, which many animals interpret as a challenge for dominance. The loud noses are to deter a bear that’s motivated by hunger rather than defence – you need to show the aggressive bear that you’re not worth the effort compared to small mammals.
Outrunning a bear is an impossible task anyway, unless perhaps it’s bear 747, the 1400 pound winner of the fattest bear competition in 2020. The grizzly’s top speed is 35mph, with a strong endurance that can sustain speeds of 30mph over 2 miles. Over short distances, a bear can even match a racehorse. You might be “the fastest kid in my school”, but don’t push your luck! Even Usain Bolt at the peak of his powers couldn’t outrun the average brown bear.
| 2 | Bears have poor eyesight |
“Bears have an excellent sense of smell to make up for poor vision”. Don’t fall for this urban legend, or you might find yourself inside a bear’s stomach. If anything, the opposite is true. Bears are one of a lucky handful of animals to have superb night vision.
Bears have a reflective membrane lining the backs of their eyeballs called the tapetum lucidum. By allowing retinal cells to absorb light for a second time, this dramatically enhances a bear’s vision in darkness, making the most of the small traces of light hovering around. The tapetum lucidum is why bear, dog, and cat eyes glow green when you flash them with a torch at night. Bears have one advantage over dogs too: full colour vision. Colour blind people are able to perceive yellow and blue as different shades of grey, but not the subtle shades within those colours.
Therefore, some scientists trained various bears to associate foods with different shades of blue. When coloured containers were later placed in front of them, the hungry bears were able to differentiate between blue with red tinges, blue-green, blue-grey and blue-yellow. The explanation is that they are omnivores, and rely on colours to identify edible plants such as berries.
So remember – wearing a bush outfit won’t save you from being eaten, or from being hugged.
| 3 | An upright bear is about to charge |
Like a bull brushing its back foot against a dusty floor, a bear standing on its hind legs is supposedly a sure sign that some full throttle grizzly action is imminent.
The truth is more innocent – that bears can see, hear, and plan much more easily when on their hind legs. Therefore, that’s what grizzlies do when checking the best route ahead, trying to descend a cliff, looking for non-human prey, or simply admiring the view.
There’s no truth to this old wives tale. The real warning signs are grunting, barking, and growling, showing that the bear is agitated. Hanging its head low with its ears upright is another great indicator, as is direct eye contact. Personally, I’d be concerned if the bear was licking its lips as well.
Actually, the grunting sounds are part of another myth. These bear noises don’t guarantee that a bear attack is imminent, only that the bear is in an agitated state of mind where assault could be possible. It doesn’t mean that a charge is seconds away, so don’t drop your rucksack and flee into the distance. It’s best not to venture into bear country without bear spray in the first place. In fact, if you’re scared, you could always reread Winnie the Pooh for the 1021st time instead.
| 4 | Play dead regardless of circumstance |
Playing dead is the correct strategy if the bear is charging for purely defensive reasons, i.e. a mother defending her cubs. She’s not hungry; she just wants to see the threat removed to ensure her offspring’s survival. However, the consensus among bear experts is that it’s a terrible move against pursuing, predatory bears, moving silently on your tail through the deep dark forest.
A bear’s goal when hunting is acquiring the most possible food for the least possible cost. That’s why brown bears will commonly scavenge the kills of wolves or cougars, or default to time-tested strategies like berry picking. If you lie down and curl into a foetal position, you are simply making the bear’s job easier. Instead, the official recommendation is to make yourself as large as possible, and talk in a loud voice, to show the bear that you’re not an easy target.
The only reason to curl up is if the bear spray has failed, your body language tactics have done wrong, punching it in the nose didn’t work, and the only strategy you have left is protecting your internal organs while accepting that some limbs will have to go.
A side point states that you should keep playing dead even if the bear starts to bite you, as sudden movements could well spook it. No recommendations on what to do if you’re in its stomach.
| 5 | Shoot the bear for success |
A common recommendation in youtube comments is to never venture into “bear country” (whose borders are murky) without a firearm. But this is flawed for two reasons. Firstly, most bears hate it when high speed bullets speed towards them, and secondly, the average bullet might not even pierce the bear’s flesh unless it’s a direct shot to the skull. The result will be an even angrier bear than the one which first made you draw your gun.
Shooting a bear will just heat up the confrontation further, particularly if it’s only a handgun. It doesn’t matter if you utter your favourite Schwarzenegger one liner from 1987. A study from the 1990s found that 50% of bear victims who defended themselves with guns suffered serious injury, compared to 10% for bear spray. Rifles are commonly recommended, but despite the added firepower, the result is usually the same.
Just recently in 2018, bear biologist Tom Smith analysed 133 defences using bear spray, and noted only 3 minor injuries. But among 269 gun defences, he discovered carnage all around: 17 dead humans and hundreds of dead bears. Bear spray is better for both of us.
Bear spray, meanwhile, is specially formulated to create a cloud of intolerable gas that a bear cannot run through without severe discomfort. The cans contain a chilli compound called capsaicin that stings the throat and eyes.
Don’t trust the feeling of invincibility that comes with a rifle! Even a bazooka shell might bounce off a bear – you can never underestimate them.
| 6 | Bears are attracted to menstruating women |
If you’re a woman on your period, then you should never cross the border of “bear country”, or a patiently waiting grizzly will leap from the forest and gobble you up instantly. That’s the theory anyway – that brown bears are particularly receptive to the scents and hormones of menstrual fluid. In the 1980s, some female Yellowstone employees were even banned from working within the park’s borders while menstruating. It taps into the fear of bears as a supernatural predator, with immense navigational skills and senses. Dogs are also known to sniff out menstruating women.
But there isn’t any solid evidence for this theory. The whole idea dates back to the notorious Night of the Grizzlies back in 1967, when two women were massacred as they camped in Glacier National Park. Amid a wave of soul searching fuelled by heavy media coverage, it was reported that one woman was menstruating while the other had tampons in her backpack. A myth was born, but when Dr Steve Herroro analysed 100 brown bear attacks from the 20th century, only one concerned a menstruating woman – the Night of the Grizzlies itself.
Black bears also offer clues, as when Ely researchers spoke to 300 black bear experts at a conference, none could recall cases of menstruating women being assaulted. Checking through the archives, Dr Steve Herrero found no mentions of assaults on menstruating women by black bears in the entire 20th century. Even government brochures regurgitate this myth!
| 7 | Bears can’t run downhill |
The saying goes that if you unwittingly wander into bear territory, you should simply run downhill, because bears are unable to. Instead, a bear can only shuffle downwards hesitantly. But is it true? The answer is a resounding no. We know this because it’s been seen hundreds of times. A bear has an average running speed of 35mph, with strong endurance, and when running down a mountain or hillside they join forces with the phenomenon known as gravity.
Proponents of this theory argue that it’s a standard training guideline of the US military or Yellowstone Park, but it isn’t! There’s no evidence for their claims. Following this strategy is a golden passport to mauling city.
The myth started because a bear’s front legs are shorter than its back legs. Try to picture the downhill motion – it certainly makes sense in terms of basic physics, causing unwieldiness like a cow on rollerskates, but it doesn’t matter, because bears run downhill every day. The other incorrect theory is that a bear will somehow trip on its own claws. If true, you’d probably die anyway as you get crushed by a large, rolling ball of fur. The myth dates back at least to 1857, when a Californian hunter called Charles Chubbuck bumped into a grizzly bear and knew that he had to run downhill immediately (which he later told a Massachusetts newspaper).
It is true, however, that dolphins cannot swim up waterfalls.
| 8 | If a bear attacks, climb a tree |
It sounds like a logical safe haven from a big, lumbering beast, but grizzlies are actually decent tree climbers. Though they lack the prowess of black bears, with their lighter bodies and perfectly shaped claws, brown bears can still make it up a tree if push comes to shove. If the bear does follow you, then you’ll have nowhere to go. Your only option would be jumping. Worse, you could be stuck in a tree with a bear while it relays boring, rambling stories about the best beehives to steal honey from.
The strategy might work if the branches were thick enough to support your weight, but too thin for the 800 pound bear’s. The problem is that you’d never have time to choose the perfect tree in the split second between life or death as the bear charges.
The strategy isn’t completely useless though. In 2012, Ben Radakovic was hiking through the Alaskan wilderness when he came upon the unholy grail of bears: a mother guarding its cubs. It charged Radakovich and bit him, and prompted by a rush of pure adrenaline, he climbed the nearest tree as high as he possibly could. By a miracle, the bear didn’t follow, and Radakovich was able to make a 911 call where the operator simply asked him “do you need an ambulance”. It’s not foolproof, but if you’re lucky, your bear foe might decide that climbing isn’t worth the effort.
| 9 | Bears bells will see you through |
Bear bells first became popular in the early 1980s, but whether they work is less clear than ever. The idea is that brown bears hate surprises, preferring to be the all-seeing master of their terrain. Many hikers recommend talking loudly, singing, or even yodelling as they pass through known bear hotspots, to give the bear a chance to flee from this unfamiliar foe. Bear bells are strapped to backpacks, boots or clothing to ring constantly as you walk. Supposedly, a bell is a doubly effective bear deterrent because it’s such an unnatural sound for a bear in the wilderness.
Yet the reality is very different. In 1982, a study found that nobody who wore a bell that year in Glacier National Park was injured by a bear. However, an experiment by Dr Tom Smith on 15 Katmai National Park bears noticed that none reacted to the bells, but most swung to attention when a pencil was snapped.
Some hikers argue that bears pay more attention to sudden, sharper sounds like a shout or a horn. Others believe that bears simply mistake the sound of bells for tweeting birds and don’t react at all.
Would you like to be bear proof? Then don’t put your faith in a cheap, plastic bell!
| 10 | Spray bear spray around your tent |
A very bad idea, unless you want to solve starvation issues in the brown bear community – with yourself. Paradoxically, despite the capsaicin mixture in bear spray being unbearable, bears are attracted to the distant scent of it on the wind. A bear can smell potential prey for 20 miles away, and this mixture will probably have a smaller range, but still be powerful enough to draw in bears that would have never normally crossed your path.
It sounds like common sense, as by spraying every surface in your camp, you could theoretically create an island oasis of bear-proof relaxation in the middle of the wilderness. It’s like getting one step ahead of the game, but in reality, only a spray to the face will cause a bear to “short circuit”. Famous bear scientist Tom Smith once visited a beach and sprayed a 1 meter patch with capsaicin-containing bear spray. Over the next week, 20 bears visited. None were repelled, 10 licked the bear spray patch, 11 rolled in it, while 16 rubbed their heads in it.
It’s very important to test fire your bear spray, both to check that the can works and to get a feel for aim, but Smith recommends strongly against doing this at camp. The bears were attracted to the patch 5 days after spraying, and Smith managed to burn himself on a patch sprayed an entire month ago.
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