Do you remember the first time you ever saw a bear in the wild? Were you scared? (If you’ve never seen a bear in the wild, would you be scared if you did?)
I was quite scared the first time I ever saw a bear, near the trailhead parking in Yosemite Valley. I’ve spent most of the 18 years since then working with bears in Yosemite and have now seen bears hundreds of times. These days, it takes a lot for a bear to scare me. I’m that comfortable around black bears (in Yosemite, at least).
Bears are the same way. They are born afraid of people. Nearly all of them, even in Yosemite, seem to remain deathly afraid of us, even when they’re big, dominant males. But, if they regularly spend time around people, they slowly get more comfortable around us–just like I got comfortable with bears by working with them so much. This is how bears get into trouble. Once they’re comfortable around people, our abundant, high-calorie food is all that more tempting (and obtainable) to them.
And this is why it’s critically important to scare black bears when they approach people or are in developed areas. (This is true in the national parks of the Sierra Nevada–it isn’t true everywhere, so always heed local instructions.) Bears learn quickly when people are afraid of them, and even more quickly when they get food out of the encounter.
So, how do you scare a bear away? Yell as loudly as possible at it (we usually say “go away bear!” or “get out of here, bear!”) Obviously, it doesn’t really matter what you say, but if you’re yelling something like that at a bear, you’re more likely to mean it. And this is the trick. You have to mean it! You could make all the noise in the world, but if the bear doesn’t think you mean it, it’ll probably ignore you. You can see an example of yelling without meaning it not working very well in this video.
Video by Zack/UTubeLightBulb via Youtube.
It turns out, in my experience, that bears like this one are very good at reading human body language. (I also wonder if, with their superb sense of smell, they can smell fear… or lack thereof.) Confident people yelling at a bear always results in the bear leaving more quickly than when un-confident people are yelling. I’ve frequently shown up at the scene of a bear in a campsite because I could hear lots of people making lots of noise with no effect, but then I, with my lone voice, scared the bear away in a second.
So, to scare a bear away, you want to yell, in your loudest possible voice, “GO AWAY BEAR!” and keep repeating it until the bear leaves. Use your voice aggressively and be mad at the bear, and mean it. Forget the car alarms, pots and pans, clapping, whistles, or whatever else. These don’t work. Yell at the bear like you’re the boss and you’re demanding it to leave, and it will (almost always).
PS: In Yosemite, we tell people not to chase bears because doing so without training can be dangerous. However, walking toward or running just a few steps toward a bear (while already yelling at it) can be helpful if you’re careful and are sure the bear has an escape route.
January 3, 2010 at 6:11 pm
people can be sooo stupid. i have a healthy fear of bears but it doesn’t keep me awake at night when i am in yosemite. thanks for all you do and share.
January 3, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Definitely the trick is to be mad at the bear; I’ve “bluff charged” bears away from trash and food lockers several times at Curry, and have never had an issue getting to leave and stay away.
So, any incidents I can tell my guests about this winter? Haven’t seen any bears since late in autumn.
January 3, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Yeah, I didn’t even get into bluff charges.
I haven’t heard anything about bear activity in a few weeks (but I haven’t been at work for a few weeks, either). I know there are some bears awake in the Valley, though.
January 5, 2010 at 7:03 pm
I have no doubt there are bears awake this time of year. It’s difficult getting folks to believe me when I tell them so, and that they need to close and latch their lockers and not keep food in their tents.
Anyway, welcome back, Jeffrey! I’ve missed your tweets. Hope you had a good vacation, and the holidays weren’t too stressing.
Edie
January 5, 2010 at 11:19 am
My first encounter with any bear was with a group of several bears at Rancheria a few years ago. A mother an two nearly grown cubs, plus a large male wandering around also. They were extremely persistent at attempting to raid the site, pilfered our open backpacks. We had to constantly scare them away. I had my whistle so I whistled. But it sounded like this lame tweety bird and the bears were unimpressed by that. The only thing they respected was aggressively standing your ground and looking fearless and determined. I don’t think they are afraid of even that. They are just doing a calculation that the calories they may obtain aren’t worth the nuisance you are posing, and simply wait till you’re distracted to come back.
January 5, 2010 at 4:30 pm
[…] under Bears, Yosemite | Tags: Bears, Yosemite | Leave a Comment Some of you reading my last post surely picked up on the part where I said that yelling aggressively at a bear will cause it to […]
January 22, 2010 at 1:55 pm
As a backpacker for 40 years in the Sierra I’ve had plenty of bear encounters (but never lost an ounce of food). Aggressively chasing and yelling has worked for me and I didn’t need canisters (but I do sleep better with them now).
In 1978 I was camped off trail with my wife in the Illiouette Creek drainage when two cubs tried to get at my well hung food about midnight. Naturally I jumped up and began calling them names and throwing rocks at them as they climbed the tree with the suspended bag. Just as I was discouraging the cubs I heard a noise behind me and there was mom – a very large golden bear in the beam of my tiny flashlight. She was only about 15 feet away, and suddenly stood up on her back legs and growled as she looked down at me. That moment seemed like an hour but was probably only a couple seconds before she dropped down and ran around me and over to the cubs. She woofed a couple times, the cubs came down the tree, and all three took off. Only time I had to change my underwear after meeting a bear.
March 8, 2010 at 9:20 pm
The first evidence of bear interest in my camp I’ve seen was a one night trip to Lost Valley, upstream from Little Yosemite (20 years ago…counterbalancing was recommended procedure). It was June, and I never heard the bear due to the sound of the Merced River, but I woke up the next day to a pile of substantial broken branches by the tree where I had hung my food/scented items. Fortunately I also had my stuff.
I loved my first sight of bears actually acting wild, in the Trinity Alps. There was a small thrill in the pit of my stomach, but it was quickly clear that the bear was doing it’s thing and wasn’t bothered by my presence – it even ran near my camp without bothering to stop and investigate.
I’ve only once had to chase a black bear away from a camp…about 15 years ago, in Michigan’s Porcupine Mtns. on the Lake Superior shore. It was quietly approaching me from behind as I was cleaning up from dinner. When I saw it I gathered my stuff by me, then grabbed a couple large rocks and loudly banged them together while yelling. I’d approach the bear and it’d run away, then it’d stop and look me over. I’d stop for a while, then do it again, it’d run a bit, then stop and investigate again. It took fifteen somewhat scary minutes, but the bear finally left.
July 18, 2010 at 10:44 pm
[…] seemed to sample everything in their locker–it just looked like a big pile of trash. (Please, scare bears out of your campsites when visiting […]
September 25, 2011 at 4:51 pm
My son just moved to Colorado and is doing alot of mountain biking and camping. We are from NY and I’m very worried about bear or mountain lion encounters. I shipped him a marine horn. One of those horns in a compressed air can. Would that work to scare away a bear?
September 25, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Air horns can be quite effective against black bears, but even more effective if he’s acting aggressively toward the bear (yelling, etc.) This is based on my experience in Yosemite–I think this is probably true for Colorado, but I don’t know for sure.
September 29, 2011 at 12:49 am
Heading to Yosemite for a few days starting tomorrow. Bear activity makes me nervous but I know the rules, etc., and plan to follow them. Can you recommend anything else other than an air horn and bear spray to ward off black bears? I want to enjoy myself and not feel so anxious. Not new to the outdoors, just slightly nervous by my own nature. Thanks for your suggestions.
September 30, 2011 at 8:47 am
Your voice is best. Air horn may help. Bear spray won’t. Don’t worry too much about it.
March 3, 2012 at 8:52 pm
COQ10…
[…]Scaring a bear away « Tales from Yosemite – Jeffrey Trust's Blog[…]…
July 20, 2012 at 12:19 pm
[…] If you are interested in learning more about scaring bears away here’s a good link: https://jeffreytrust.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/scaring-a-bear-away/ […]
September 23, 2012 at 3:11 pm
I never read much about a good recommendation I learned a long time ago and that is, if you are hiking in bear country and off the path working your way into the backcountry, just talk a lot. In my experience, bears hate the sound of human voices more than bells or whistles or horns. For some reason, when people quitely sneak up on a bear, bad things happen. Keep up the chit chat while hiking and you’ll probably never see a bear, cuz they will hear you first and move away. Bears are very smart. They know humans can harm them so let them know you’re around by being loud and chatty. That really is the best way to keep them away. In camp. when sleeping, I like to set up a parimeter of string about 30 yards out all around my tent and hang little bells on the string. IF a deer, or bear tries to come for food, they hit the string, bells ring and I grab the spray and start screaming. Only happened a few times. Once it was a bearbut he ran off as soon as I started yelling at him, but most of the time it’s raccoons. which reminds me, now that I’m on a roll. I’d watch out for mice, rats, squirrels and chimpmunks more than bears. The little critters love food too ya know and they do not fear you one bit. I had one morning where i woke up and it looked like a tea party around the trash bag. little ones made a huge mess. luckily we had tons of kids in camp so we made them clean up our mistake. should have hung the trash bags… (don’t tell ’em I said that).
October 31, 2012 at 9:10 pm
I was just out on the Trinity River with 3 friends. We floated the canyon and camped on a gravel bar along the bank. We all have had a number of bear dealings in the past. We had a black bear come into camp and sit 30′ from us and no matter what we did it wouldn’t retreat. Finally we took the light off the bear and it seemed to move on. We thought it was sitting tight do to having a cub nearby. 2 hours later we checked and bear had moved within 20′ of our tents. The bear would not move for about 15 mins. We threw rocks and moved towards it yelling, the bear ran off. I haven’t seen a bear so reluctant to leave. Has this bear come accustom to people? I guess he most likely wanted our food. Any insight on why the bear wouldn’t leave. Thanks.
November 1, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Assuming there wasn’t a cub, it sounds like this bear is just very much habituated to people and food conditioned; it’s probably gotten a lot of food from people on a regular basis. The bear knows what it can get away with and realizes most people won’t be so persistent as you were (and thanks for being that way).
May 30, 2013 at 10:37 pm
[…] If you are interested in learning more about scaring bears away here’s a good link: https://jeffreytrust.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/scaring-a-bear-away/ […]