Posted on 05/15/2020 5:57:16 AM PDT by marktwain
In a March 15, 2020 article about a bear encounter by Caroline Wellbery, a bear biologist makes a hyperbolic claim. It is not unusual for people to make hyperbolic claims about bears, which are not founded in facts or data. It is irresponsible for experts in the field to do so. From the washingtonpost.com:
There is a bigger chance of getting hit twice by lightning, Craighead says, than being mauled by a bear.
As with any statistical assessment, it depends on a number of assumptions. If you are talking about the United States as a whole, Craighead's claim is false.
Over the last decade, the number of people killed by lightning per year, according to weather.gov, has been 26. The number of people struck by lightning is about 10 times that number, or about 260 a year, or about 1 out of 1.27 million in a year. The number struck by lightning has been falling. The expected lifespan in the United States is about 79 years.
Assuming that each person has half of their life to live after the first strike, at any one time, there are about 79/2 x 260 people who have been struck by lightning once, or 10,270 living in the United States. Each of those, in a given year, has a chance of being struck by lightning again. Because the odds are so small, they are, essentially, additive, so, for a given year, they are very close to 10,270/1.27 million, or .008 per year, or about 1 person every 123 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Bears, beets, bolts of lightning.
The odds of getting hit by lightening go up on a golf course, though they’re still very low (~1 in 600,000).
Oh, my!
Yet bears are never struck by lightning. Makes you think...
Pair that with getting hit while eating cheese and you have something.
Says who?
Animals, in general, have high accident rates.
They simply are not generally recorded.
When animals are injured in the wild, they tend to be killed and eaten fairly quickly.
Carrying a firearm can’t save me from a lightning strike, but it can be of use against a bear attack.
One of the major reasons people want to discredit the usefulness of firearms to defend against bear attacks, I believe, is to remove the idea of the usefulness of firearms in self defense, generally.
:focal(2572x2722:2573x2723)/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/15/97/15972379-a704-4c12-8848-196d954896dc/42-55992923.jpg)
Same odds as getting the Wuhan flu.
I saw something on TV where a herd of reindeer were killed by a lightning strike. I saw a lightning strike on a mountain across my canyon one night. It was awesome. It started a brushfire and by the time the Forrest service fire department got there the skies opened up and put it out. It’s the dry lightning that is the problem.
Yup. A gun is your best defense. We have lots of bears around here and they love the trash cans. I don’t give a crap. If I am threatened by a bear then I would rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
The odds of getting hit by lightening go up on a golf course
——
Unless you’re holding up a 3 iron. Not even God can hit a 3 iron.
What are the odds of getting struck by lightning while getting mauled by a bear?
Actually, it was a joke...
Ah, Wardenclyffe...
Thank you.
LOL
That goes up exponentially if you are eating cheese in the shower.
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