Think Grizzly.
“Thousands of hunters are crawling around grizzly country in the predawn darkness, alone, quietly, into the wind, and smelling like stale elk pee. If they have a successful hunt, they’ll fill the wind with the smell of high-quality grizzly food. Is this a problem? By Bill Schneider.” By Bill Schneider. New West.
. . . and a related story about using electric fences to keep grizzlies from hunting camps.
Zap! Marauding grizzlies in for nasty shock. ↓
Electric fences are meant to keep bruins from following noses into outfitter camps. By Cory Hatch. Jackson Hole News and Guide.
Ah, Pilgrim Creek in the Teton Wilderness. I know it well — grizzly central! It was worrying to backpack there.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Glad to see these articles out. As a note on the fence, some Fish and Game officers who were using a fence around their camp in Alaska told me that once a bear gets shocked they don’t come near it for a while, even if it is off. But, if the fence is off too long the bears learn to feel the energy around the wires to tell whether it is on or off. A properly working fence seems to work very well according to them.
This happens almost anywhere in bear country. As a kid living in Alaska, bears on kodiak learned that a rifle shot was the same as a dinner bell and would key attempt to take the hunters kill. Ususally with success, as the stae of alaska would just give you another tag. It is illegal to kill a grizzly bear in defense of a big game kill. I have seen numerous grizzlys on gut piles over the years and enjoy watching them.