Posted on 11/27/2014 12:18:40 PM PST by marktwain
Shooting a bear in the head is tricky business. Basically the skull stops at the top of the eye sockets. Shoot in that big “forehead” and the bullet will hit a mass of fat, hide and hair. At that angle you need to shoot midway between the eyes and tip of the nose.
Perhaps they asked the bear to stop charging so they could hit the right stop.
Or they were using howitzers.
8 feet from a charging grizzly.
Thats enough to make you pucker.
Bear spray wouldn’t work in my area. It’s almost always too windy for that. With a little bear anatomy knowledge and a plan for defense, a firearm would be a much safer tool.
From the front, the target areas are the chest just above the tops of the legs, the small area of the skull in the middle between the eyes and ears, and the spine (top or front of neck depending on bear’s position, low or high). It’s not much, but it’s better than being killed. There was an anatomy target with target areas for defense somewhere around the Net.
The frequent talk about bear skulls being too thick is a myth, but a more perpendicular and less oblique bullet path with respect to a bear skull is preferable for defense. In most cases, even a miss will stop a bear and scare it away. Wounded bears are more often dangerous later on and not at the time of being shot.
Those fir arms must be controlled.
Even though the article does not state the caliber of the weapons, it does say shooters were hunting elk, pretty large animals that would often be hunted with something like a .308. That means they’d definitely have enough gun at 10 feet.
If you spray it on yourself (like mosquito repellant), it's just so much hot sauce. Bears love hot sauce.
A charging bear at that distance creates a multi-tasking event for the shooter: shooting, standing still, and messing one’s pants.
Since when is elk hunting legal in Grand Teton National PARK?
Probably not, but the shooters might have been just on the edge. Just guessing,but the article says they were hunting elk.
Elk hunting has been legal in Grand Teton National Park for a long time. It is one of the few National Parks where hunting is legal. Hunting has been used to keep the elk heard there in check for many years.
http://www.jacksonholewy.net/summer_recreation/hunting.php
heard should be herd
I wanna go elk hunting. I hear the bear problem is under control now.
Not a sight I’d like to see personally.
Today, I learned something new!
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