Vitaly Nikolayenko studying a bear.
Posted on 07/22/2022 4:41:30 AM PDT by marktwain
Nearly 20 years ago, there was a well-documented bear spray failure in Russia. A world-famous bear researcher, Vitaly Nikolayenko, was killed by a bear only two months after Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard were killed and partially consumed by a bear or bears in Alaska. Nikolayenko was half-eaten.
All the bears involved were variations of the brown bear, also known as the European brown bear, grizzly bear, or Kodiak bear.
Treadwell disdained any type of defensive weapon. Nikolayenko had bear spray and a flare gun. When Nikolayenko was late in reporting, a search team, including his long-time friend, Victor Rebrikov, found his body and evidence the spray was ineffective. From the archive of boston.com:
“Vitaly must have begun to take pictures of the resting bear, but the tree trunks and branches were in the way, and he must have decided to get inside the grove. His footprints lead into the grove after the bear. He approached the bear at a distance of three meters,” Rebrikov said.
A large swath of orange pepper spray indicates Nikolayenko tried to defend himself, and a flare gun was lying next to the body, unfired. Half his body had been consumed.
His camera was broken and bloody nearby. The film has not yet been developed. The researcher’s wife, Tatiana Nikolayenko, had spent most of last week trying to find a helicopter flight to bring her husband home in time for the New Year’s holiday.
Nikolayenko did not view the bears as harmless as Treadwell did; he understood they were dangerous. Still, his methods of research were similar to Treadwell’s eco-adventurism; he approached the bears at very close range and depended on their tolerance
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Vitaly Nikolayenko studying a bear.
Or the other way around.
Dinner time 🤪
Russian bear spray...
You provoke any animal long enough you get what you deserve. There’s no indication the bear was hit with the spray just that it had been sprayed.
You can tell you are in a man eating bear’s territory, by smelling any bear scat you see.
A man eating bear’s scat smells like Bear (Pepper) Spray.
Russian bear spray...
You provoke any animal long enough you get what you deserve.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Perhaps a parallel commentary on the NATO / Russian situation?
Would it help if you put bear spray on your bullets?
Karma
Bear spray will work on a bear that is well fed and not diseased.I would never rely on it to defend my life from a bear.
But if a bear is really hungry, or has rabies, bear spray will not stop such a bear.It will follow its prime directive to feed. And to a hungry bear a liitle bear spray is hardly as bad as being stung by an entire nest of bees when getting wild honey.As a matter of fact , bear spray can get a bear very, very agitated.
The best thing you can do when confronted by a bear is to leave, or alternatively have a heavy caliber firearm in case the bear charges, which can happen , very, very fast. In the blink of an eye.
You want a bear story? Read that of Freeper Kanawa.He stabbed a black bear to death that has seized his dog in its jaws. (Kanawa do you have the link to that bear story, I can’t find it after searching.)
‘The Bears Tolerance’
.
Relying on a bear’s tolerance is a poor self defense plan.
I would think the body was enough evidence.......................
Much like Republicans depending of Democrats 'tolerance'............
“His camera was broken and bloody nearby. The film has not yet been developed.”
I guess he didn’t have time to develop the film after being mauled, killed, and partially eaten.
I thought it smelled of liberals.
I am NOT a fan of bear spray and when I hike in my woods I carry a large caliber revolver because there are bears here. However, I wonder if the data on bear spray is biased, because in cases where bear spray is effective, there is no need to report the incident. No one is injured, there is no wounded or dead bear to report, so everyone just goes home and it doesn’t get counted. When bear spray is ineffective there is a reportable incident resulting in death or injuries and it’s all over the news. Just something to consider.
Picture makes me wonder what he is studying. Most biologists want to observe animals in their natural habitat. The best Vitaly could be studying is the bear’s reaction to what might be interpreted as an aggressive human.
“Most biologists want to observe animals in their natural habitat.”
Vitaly was studying how much you could aggravate a hungry bear before it attacks. He found out.
The fine motor control that humans have in their arms and hands comes with a price tag of less strength and less speed.
Bears also bite an adversary's head. One of my City Commissioners was attacked at sunset by a female bear with cubs just a couple hundred feet from his Cascades weekend home.
The guy survived, but he looked like a zombie until a half dozen plastic surgeries finally put his skull and face back together.
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