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Recently some brown bears appeared in my region.

Should we encounter one, is it a good idea if we opened a jar of honey for the bear so we would have time to leave?

Gergely
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    Where in the world are you? Feeding bears is usually a bad idea unless you're trying to attract them as part of a conservation project; but how bad an idea (e.g. legality) depends on jurisdiction and population – Chris H Oct 24 '20 at 18:18
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    Hungary. Bad idea: when your life is in danger you do not give too much about legality. – Gergely Oct 24 '20 at 18:20
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    Maybe you don't, but you're endangering all humans in the area for the foreseeable future, by teaching the bears that people are a source of food – Chris H Oct 24 '20 at 19:01
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    I have to ask -- were you 100% sure it was a brown bear and not a black bear? You can't go by color. The answer to your question is NO either way, but the level of danger is much higher for the brown bear. – ab2 Oct 24 '20 at 22:04
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    @ab2 The black bear is really only a thing in America, even the name is Ursus americanus. If OP is in Hungary, it can only be a brown bear. – pipe Oct 25 '20 at 13:46
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    Unless it’s name is Pooh, please don’t. – Jon Custer Oct 25 '20 at 15:03
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    @JonCuster - They may also want to avoid leaving it picnic baskets and/or marmalade sandwiches – Valorum Oct 25 '20 at 19:48
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    @Valorum - well, leaving it in a pic-a-nic basket would be a real Booboo, wouldn't it, Yogi? – Jon Custer Oct 25 '20 at 22:20
  • @Gergely I accidentally upvoted your comment about not caring about legality, but can't undo it for some reason. That upvote is not a show of support thinking that a jar of honey will save your life. – DKNguyen Oct 26 '20 at 00:21
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    There's a lot of upvoting on "endangering all humans in the area for the foreseeable future". Just to be clear, before I posted my answer, the last post had been "unless you're trying to attract them as part of a conservation project;". OP was prioritizing life and limb on their family and companions over abstract concepts like conservation. That's not unreasonable. Explain, don't criticize without context. Thinking of bears as not really dangerous until habituated is not unreasonable unless you spend a lot of time thinking about bears. Appreciation for: no downvotes to Q. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Oct 26 '20 at 05:11
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    @JonCuster Even then, you probably wouldn't want to; bears do eat honey, but they need to eat other things too, to avoid malnutrition. There was a Youtube video about this posted on the Game Theory channel the other day, which I half-expected this Question to be about. – nick012000 Oct 26 '20 at 06:46
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    Would the bear wait for you to get out the honey jar and unscrew the lid? Or would you have one ready? How many jars of honey are you considering packing? – Weather Vane Oct 26 '20 at 11:19
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    I'd like to note that while most people assume bears are attracted to bees because of the honey, they are generally more interested in the brood (larvae) than they are the honey. The smell of honey is generally stronger (which is why bees cap the honey in comb), but is not why the bear seeks out the hive. – Brydon Gibson Oct 27 '20 at 12:00
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    A survey of the relevant literature suggests that the jar-of-honey trick only works if it's just a little bit at the bottom of a jar big enough for the bear's head to fit into, but not back out. – Chris Stratton Oct 27 '20 at 18:06

3 Answers3

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No, not a good idea at all. The bear is now used to people and food together and will seek people. This will not end well for the bear and may very not end well for the next people it encounters.

"when your life is in danger"

Respectfully, your life is not in danger and feeding bears can put other people's lives in danger later. If your life really was in danger because you are an active target of attack - say you were too near to some bear cubs - the bear would most likely not pay any attention to the honey and would attack you. Consider also that carrying food around in bear country is likely to attract them.

The general idea with a bear is to back away slowly, possibly speaking to it, and not look it in the eyes.

This video is for North American bears.

From looking this up a bit, 1, 2 3 seems like you are indeed dealing with brown bears, i.e. pretty much a what we would call a grizzly, not black bears (a relatively easy way to tell is that big hump on the back, right behind the neck). If it was an actual North American grizzly this would mean:

  • they don't want to hurt you and will only attack if they feel threatened or are surprised.
  • they can however kill you just by hitting you to warn you off
  • don't fight back, play dead, they are not predatory and will probably lose interest.
  • don't run, it triggers predation. They look slow but can easily outrun you. One was pacing me, for whatever reason, running on the other side of a ditch while I was doing 30-35k cycling down a road - they're fast.
  • your best bet for safety is to make sure you don't surprise a bear. They will get out of your way. An example of a good way to surprise a bear is to arrive downwind of a fast river on a bear fishing or eating berries. They can't smell you because of the wind direction, the river covers up your noise of approach and they are busy eating.
  • so, walk in a group if possible, make noise. Good moment for a boombox (not headphones), enjoy some music!

Bears are however not sharks and certainly not crocodiles. They are smart enough to avoid humans under nearly all conditions (unless they associate people with food, which is why the honey idea is bad in practice) and have very limited interest in you as something to eat. Be cautious but appreciate the possibility of their presence: they're a bit of wild nature that could hurt you but you are much more likely to be be hit by a car while walking. An encounter is a good story to have folk buy you a beer once COVID is gone ;-) I've seen 4 or 5 myself on foot/bicycle, not counting ones I've seen from a car.

If you are truly concerned, and if you have access to it, buy some bear spray. It's about $20-30 where I live (Canada) and lasts 3-4 years. Note that, at least in Canada, there are tons of regulations about transporting it (don't bring it in a plane).

p.s. One last thing, which is counter-intuitive. Leave the dog at home, or leash it, unless it's trained for bears. A not uncommon occurrence goes like this: dog finds bear, barks at it, bear charges, dog runs back to master with bear in pursuit.

Some extra reading. Good, but they tend to mix blacks and grizzlies together in the grizzly coverage.

Doktor J
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Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
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    A couple of things to note about bear spray: it's not the same as pepper spray for use on humans (possibly longer range, stronger); don't bring it to the UK if you ever visit - with no bears here its only use would be a weapon and having it is a fairly serious offence. (+1 for the answer) – Chris H Oct 24 '20 at 19:04
  • This answer is good for North America and much of it applies to Hungary, but I'm not sure if all of it does. I've never seen pepper spray for sale in Europe. – gerrit Oct 25 '20 at 08:20
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    @gerrit https://www.desertcart.ro/products/24312834-guard-alaska-bear-spray ;-) Seriously, with 6000 bears in Romania, about same density as our 15000, I certainly hope they'd have it for sale. Or Hungary. Not so much need for it elsewhere in Europe. If they don't have it, you can disregard that part, but bear spray is the thing to avoid bear problems, much better than guns. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Oct 25 '20 at 08:45
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    Another way of making sure you do not surprise a bear is to wear a bear bell. Here is an example of use (from an otherwise unrelated but excellent video). – hlovdal Oct 25 '20 at 11:46
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    I’m interested to know where you’ve seen so many bears on bicycles - explains how’s they can be so fast – sam_smith Oct 25 '20 at 12:06
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    I would appreciate if you replace those smilies (or whatever they are called) with words. They are hard to work out even when showing up and not all computers do show them. – Willeke Oct 25 '20 at 18:52
  • @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica : In Romania, pepper spray is legal in the wilderness, you can also take an electroshock device to a trip, but the best thing would be an ultrasonic repellent. But no matter if a spray or an electrical device, you probably won't need it against bears, they actively avoid humans (unless they are surprised, like the answer stated). You might need them against dogs, however, shepherd dogs can be extremely aggressive. They won't bite you if you stay perfectly still, but they won't let you proceed. So you'll have to wait for the shepherd to arrive and call them off. – vsz Oct 25 '20 at 19:52
  • (continued...) And if there are no shepherds around, an ultrasonic dog repellent might be a good idea. Even better than a spray, as the shepherds won't be happy if they found out you've blinded their dogs with a bear spray. – vsz Oct 25 '20 at 19:54
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    Summary: a fed bear is a dead bear... (or on its way there). Since gun laws tend to be far more strict across Europe than in Canada (not to speak of the US), "guns" is not a consideration in most of Europe. As for bear spray, OP needs to check their local laws, since there are substantial differences. @gerrit: I've seen a couple of "bear size" (400 ml 11% OC) products for sale in Germany. Doesn't make sense to buy due to lack of bears, though - and it would be questionable whether one can take them to, say, Hungary (e.g. they may need markings in the local language/by local authorities) – cbeleites unhappy with SX Oct 26 '20 at 04:48
  • Throughout Scandinavia, AFAIK bear spray (pepper spray) is classified as weapon and either outright illegal or requires a weapon license. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Oct 26 '20 at 05:29
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    @Willeke I agree that the emojis do not help legibility, but those are standard unicode characters. Any computer (or browser rather) that does not show them is probably ancient. – Harabeck Oct 27 '20 at 21:42
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    No rules against old computers. And how about those text-to-speach help programs for the blind? – Willeke Oct 28 '20 at 05:27
  • @Harabeck on my three year old phone the microbe emoji displays as a placeholder -- so no, not that ancient. That particular emoji was only added in 2018. – Doktor J Oct 29 '20 at 13:35
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When the bear is actually dangerous is when it is angry or frightened, and if it is angry or frightened it won't care about your silly jar of honey. Dare I say you're thinking too much like a city person? Your mindset is completely wrong. This is not like a clingy housepet that you're trying to distract for just long enough so you can leave the house.

Imagine if the roles were reversed. If you a bear suddenly startled you and it dropped a bag of money in front of you so it could get away, would you care about the bag of money at all?

DKNguyen
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    I don't know, I think if I discovered that a bear was carrying around a bag of money, that would probably startle me even more than seeing a bear in the first place. – Acccumulation Oct 26 '20 at 06:24
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    ...yes, I would care about the bag of money, I would take it as solid evidence that I am most certainly dreaming. – gerrit Oct 26 '20 at 07:55
  • I think a more accurate example would be if the friend you need to run faster than dropped that bag of money. – Haem Oct 27 '20 at 09:51
  • @Haem That works too. – DKNguyen Oct 27 '20 at 12:50
  • My original question was not about an angry bear. – Gergely Oct 29 '20 at 07:25
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    @Gergely That's the point you aren't understanding. Your assumption is bear = always dangerous whether or angry or not. What you aren't understanding is that the only time you actually want the honey out is exactly the time when the bear doesn't care about the honey. Every other time you're just training it to follow you, and other humans around. – DKNguyen Oct 29 '20 at 16:21
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There are some other good posts, but one thing I haven't seen brought up is that bears are thought to have the best sense of smell in the animal kingdom, possibly 7 times as good as a blood hound, 2100 times as good as a human.

So carrying that jar of honey around with you might just entice a bear to follow your trail and get at the honey. Just sayin'...

https://www.nps.gov/yose/blogs/bear-series-part-one-a-bears-sense-of-smell.htm

Jason Goemaat
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  • Thanks. You know, I wanted to have an idea other than just asking how could I defend myself in the woods. People are better pointing at errors than answering open questions. – Gergely Oct 29 '20 at 07:21
  • And thanks for the informative article on the smell of bears. – Gergely Oct 29 '20 at 07:23