In defense of Canadians ...

Forgive my ignorance here, but are Black Bears, more or less aggressive, than Brown Bears?
I think Mara has Brown Bears,where she lives.

 

just watch out for the ones trained in Karate

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARnbRBWKGg"]YouTube - John West Salmon Commercial[/ame]

 

Well Grizzly bears are a subspecies of Brown Bears and I think that Grizzlys are more agressive.

 

Very funny Video, Match.I put that one in favourites.

 

Laughed out loud at the photo, Dougie - wow, that should surely taken down even bit critters! (Imagine the sweat involved in digging the massive hole to hid the evidence though ).

Yes, the grizzlies are more aggressive (and luckily farther out than our normal brown and sometimes black bears) but sadly any bear that's ill, old or just plain hungry must just think of us a lunch on legs.

And the hints for survival are accurate and good ones - unfortunately an enraged bear doesn't much seem to care if it's stabbed in the eye or beaten by people which hammers or what ever is on hand, often.

Last year, a nice lady living not too far from us - in a heavily populated residential area - started weeding the flowers on her front lawn when a bear decided to attack with no warning. The neighbours heard the screams and were there within seconds - but even so she was severely injured, especially around her head - and although the neighbours beat the pooey out of the bear it only backed off a few feet from it's prey and was still there trying to attack again when the Police arrived with guns. (The average homeowner here in Canada doesn't have any firearms).

Our kids have portable 'bear sirens' (they hook on their belts) hat may or may not work to frighten a bear away - it's a good thing the risks are relatively low as I'm pretty sure that all the teaching we've given them to never never turn and run would mean nothing if a bear headed towards them.
(For that matter, I suspect I'd be tempted to break the human racing speed myself).

 

I've said that I should have moved to Canada or Australia, and even today I say that one of the first things I'd do with a lottery win would be to get out of this country, but I have never really considered how safe it is here, the most vicious thing we have to deal with is bored adolesents,

the closest we come to anything dangerous is if we visit a zoo or safari park, if we get a get a earth tremmor of above 3 on thhe richter scale its headline news and then the major topic of the day is did you notice it, and most don't, no volcanic activity, had a couple of catagree 1 tornados over the last few years, and a few small floods compared to other places in the world,

It's actually supprising thinking about it that the British don't get themselves into all sorts of trouble when the go off touring the world, as we don't have to deal with any thing dangerous, we don't know how to.

ie If i were to see a bear the first thing I would do is run towards something to climb, and probably break all known olympic sprint records, and until I read this thread I would have thought that once sitting in my tree I would be safe, so imagine the amusement you canadians would have watching a British guy start flapping his arms in an attemp to fly as a bear started climbing a tree.

 

Here's an interesting site that shows in the decade of 2000 the most Bear attacks have occurred. It seems like the Black Bear is the more common one to attack.

 

That's a great link - bears are fascinating creatures (at a distance) and it's always sad when they attack humans, both for themselves and us.

Don't want to leave the impression Canada is just a great wilderness, though. We honestly do have major cities and tons of towns here and there between them . It's just that it's a large country in square footage and even in the Vancouver area (one of the largest cities in Canada), while one can swim in the Pacific Ocean and ski at Whistler all in the same day, there's still many, many hectors of mountains completely covered with forests - and where there's forests, there's wild animals. For the most part, we try to live harmony with each other - but sometimes without much luck.

Ah, yes ... although the bear may be amused to see an Englishman's arms wheeling around like a windmill while trying to take flight after scrambling to the top of a tree, I'm afraid you'd still likely be it's lunch.

Most of our tourists are quite contend to stay on clearly marked paths when hiking, etc but the few that don't - just as do the Canadians that don't - often need rescuing. Not necessarily from wild animals but usually from themselves (not being prepared for sudden weather changes and getting lost, etc).

Now ... I know Australia has snakes (huge eek!) ... surely if one has to be attacked by something wild, a bear is preferably to a snake!?? And we mustn't forget our British friends have those vicious little Hedgehogs that could sneak up and attack at any time