Posted on 08/17/2007 7:44:57 PM PDT by george76
A man is recovering in hospital after being attacked by a female grizzly.
The victim, a man in his 30s, was preparing for bow-hunting season ...
He managed to kill the bear with a knife, but suffered serious arm and elbow injuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at calsun.canoe.ca ...
That is not a buck knife. A buck knife is one that folds and has a locking blade when open.
ping
Wrong.
http://www.buckknives.com/catalog/detail/228/222
You are thinking of the Buck Model 110. They make other models.
Few more details here...
Cubs sought after man kills mother grizzlyWildlife officers are looking for several orphaned bear cubs after a man armed with a machete-style hunting knife managed to fight off and kill an angry mother bear Wednesday night.
"It's been reported the grizzly bear had three cubs," said Alberta Sustainable Resource Development spokesman Darcy Whiteside. "What we're hoping is we can relocate them out of the area and release them back into the wild."
On Wednesday night, a man surveying an area near Grovedale, 480 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, accidentally walked between a mother bear and her cubs.
The mother bear attacked, and the man suffered serious injuries to his arms and a leg.
He managed to stab the animal and escape. Wildlife officers had to call off a search for the bear Wednesday night, but found the body about 27 metres away from the attack Thursday morning.
RCMP Const. Leanne Beattie said the man stabbed the bear three times with a large hunting knife.
The man had bite marks and scratches and appeared to have at least one broken limb. "That's good condition, considering," Beattie said.
Grovedale volunteer fire Capt. Troy Smith described him as a man in his 30s, about six feet tall with an average build.
After the attack, the man walked almost a kilometre back to the road. Despite his injuries, "he seemed all right," Smith said.
Traps have been set out for the bear cubs, but so far investigators have not tracked them down.
The bear's carcass has since been sent to Edmonton for a full autopsy.
How is your dog? All healed?
I called the knife company and told them they should make a special edition. Don’t know if they ever did. Gave them a link to FR where many freepers said they’d buy one.
Kanawa is still around, he pings me on dog threads. Maybe we can ask him.
If only this guy had been backed up by an eeeeeeeeevil pitbull he’d be eating bear steaks and fishing with nary a scratch.
UPDATE...The Hunter tells his story.
GRANDE PRAIRIE — A hunter who fought off and mortally wounded a charging grizzly bear last week said he had no chance to run and was forced to defend himself.
Chris McLellan, 32, was scouting locations for bow-hunting in a farmer’s oat field 12 km south of Grovedale around 9:30 p.m. Aug. 15 when he ran into the mother grizzly with three cubs.
McLellan said the bear had been partially concealed by a knoll in the field and he didn’t see her until she stood up in front of him 60 yards away.
“I started to shake, man,” McLellan told Sun Media, as he continues to recover from his injuries at an Edmonton hospital.
“I had a camouflage mask on so I took that off so that she could see that I was a human, thinking that would scare her away. I started waving my arms and screaming and it never fazed her. She just dropped down to all fours and charged.”
There was no room for choice, said McLellan, as the distance was too short and the bear would have run him down.
“She never slowed down,” he said. “She never made a turn. She was attacking. There was no bluffing. She just stared into my eyes the whole time and you could just hear her coming, huffing and puffing across that field.”
McLellan had driven out to the field down Secondary Highway 666 before turning onto Range Road 73 and driving about four kilometres.
He had only a digital camera and a hunting knife with 12-inch blade when he encountered the bear.
McLellan switched on the camera to nightshot and hoped its flash would be enough to deter her. When the flash wouldn’t go off, he pulled out his knife.
“I put my knife above my head and waited for her to hit me,” he said. “She just mowed into me like a football check.”
The grizzly rammed into his stomach and then grabbed his left arm with her jaws. As the two went down, McLellan plunged the knife into her back between the shoulder and neck.
“I sunk it right to the end and instantly I could still see the blood spraying,” he said. “I must have hit an artery because I was covered head to toe with warmth instantly.”
The bear then bit him on his torso and his right arm but McLellan managed to stab her again twice in the neck.
The grizzly then turned and walked way, allowing McLellan to get up even though his left arm was now broken.
“I didn’t even look at her at all,” he said. “I didn’t even know I had killed it until the following day.”
McLellan then met a farmer who called 911. Grovedale Fire and Rescue transported him to hospital.
The bones in McLellan’s left forearm were broken between the wrist and elbow, and a nerve located in his elbow was nearly severed by the bear’s teeth. Although his injuries required surgery, McLellan considers himself lucky.
“I ran different scenarios over of not only how I could have ended up but what I could have done differently, that maybe would have turned out better,” he said. “I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Formerly from Parsporo, N.S., McLellan moved to the Grande Prairie area with his wife and young son Aug. 12.
McLellan, a welder by trade, was looking forward to hunting here.
“I never in my life have been able to go out prior to hunting season and scout out my area,” he said.
And he’s determined to bow hunt again, bringing his right arm back to full strength after surgeons in Edmonton operate on it.
Still, the emotional effects of the attack are just starting to sink in.
“It wasn’t like a dream because I wasn’t scared when it happened. I was just calm. It hit me maybe a couple of days later just how lucky I was and that it shouldn’t have happened that way.”
Wow! Thanks for the ping back!
Going to be a long row to hoe, but the old boys got the grits.
kanawa,
Thanks for the ping. You said you came past some black bears in that area recently. Just curious, after your experience with the bear how do you react when seeing one in the woods now? Adreneline get to pumping? What about your dog’s reaction?
Did Buck Knives ever get back to you about your experience?
How is your dog doing? He was mauled pretty bad at the time.
Something tells me that he WILL learn to shoot that bow again.
Tough dude!
Thanks for the ping.
>>>>I had a camouflage mask on so I took that off so that she could see that I was a human, thinking that would scare her away. I started waving my arms and screaming and it never fazed her. She just dropped down to all fours and charged.” <<<<<
I wonder if he would have been better off to stay silent and attempt to back away slowly. The commotion of waving an screaming may have been more threatening. I would imagine the female grizzly who was mostly concerned with protecting her cubs.
On the other hand, not being the one staring up at a irritated grizzly, it’s easy to second guess while sitting at my computer.
wow.
While walking to my car in my driveway this afternoon, I came upon a wild rabbit who burrowed himself into the neighbor’s lawn. I paused for a moment to try and figure out what it was doing, when out hops another rabbit, getting in between bunny 1 and me. As I was standing there, I chuckled to myself at the second rabbit’s bravery, when it made two more very bold moves toward me. At that point, I quickly got into my car.
I simply can’t even imagine the animal being a bear!
The ones I saw were while driving so no problem there.
I only had one campsite in B’C. that made me a little nervous.
I was isolated, lake on one side, bush on the other.
My awareness heightened and the frequency of my look-arounds went up substantially.
I had both knife and spray on my belt. I made sure I had my boots on, not my sandals.
I also did something I had never done before...
collected some good size rocks into strategically placed piles.
I thought that would give me extra option if I had to drive one off.
Since we haven’t had a close encounter since the first one it’s hard to say what Sam’s reaction would be.
He seems to be enjoying the outdoors as much as ever.
When I took my firearms safety course it was on the second floor of a building.
There was a stuffed bear at the top of the stairs that was very close in appearance to ‘our bear’.
I asked if it would be all right to bring him and show him the bear, they said sure.
Now the stairs were the type where you go halfway up to a landing
and then continue to the top in the opposite direction.
I brought Sam in, he was enjoying it,
just dododoing along until he reached the landing, turned and saw the bear.
He stopped in his tracks fer sure!
With some coaxing and reassuring from me he slowly came up the rest of the steps.
When he got close he stuck his head out as far as he could
while keeping the rest of himself back as far as possible
and gave the bear a good sniffing.
So that was good I guess, he didn’t refuse to approach, try to run away or pee himself ;)
I expect in a real encounter he’ll be as brave as he was before.
I had some media fellow call me to let me know that Buck wanted to talk to me.
I probably should have passed on my phone# but I was getting a little tired of all the calls,
wanting my life to get back to what passes as normal, so I gave him my email address
thinking I could consider whatever they had to say before responding.
For whatever reason contact was never established.
Sam is doing fine,
as I tell people there are just a couple of areas where the fur doesn’t grow,
we call them his ‘bear’ spots.
Everything happens pretty quickly.
The mind is working feverously to find away out of the perdicament.
But even when you have time to find options the question remains...
would it make things better OR worse?
Afterwards I recognized how fortunate I was to be able to get behind the bear.
“If I had had to face it head on what would I done?...
offered it my one arm to chew on while stabbing with the other?”
I guess that is indeed what one does in that situation.
A painful solution but it worked for this fellow.
Be careful! You gotta watch out for those killer rabbits!:)
I was driving down a township road one day last fall and saw a mountain lion lying on a big round hay bale. The bale was in a little slough area in the midst of a sunflower field about 100 yds from the road. I stopped my truck and watched it for a few minutes. It just laid there looking back at me. I then got out and walked down in the ditch and yelled at it. The cat slowly got down and slinked off into the field of sunflowers. It was really cool to watch but I was kinda nervous. Didn’t get too far away from my truck and was ready to sprint back and jump in, just in case. But I wanted it to get up so I could get a better look at it. Sure wish I would have had a camera along with me.
Yeah, I can’t imagine being in that situation. I would bet that you go from beyond scared to just plain fighting for survival.
Whenever I have had confrontations with mean dogs, I get scared up to the point when they actually bite me. Then I get fighting mad and want to kill the s.o.b.!
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