Many years ago, I was writing an exam for a job as a river guide on the
Nahanni River in northern Canada. One of the questions on the exam
asked what you should do if a bear wandered into your camp and would
not leave, even after you made as much noise as possible, banged pots, and
threw rocks in an attempt to scare it away. My reply was to leave. The exam
iner told me I was the first applicant in three years to get the answer right.
After all, it’s the animal’s home and territory, not ours. We are the visitors.
Years of research and thousands of anecdotal accounts of encounters
have shown that the only animals worth fooling by “playing dead” are the
North American grizzly and Kodiak bears. For all other accidental preda
tors, human aggressive displays tend to win the day, because these acci
dental predators can’t afford to get injured. In one case, a woman thwarted
a bear attack by reaching out and tweaking the bear’s nose. That’s all it took!
The bear was so freaked out, it lumbered away. These animals don’t know
if you have the ability to seriously injure them, so they spook easy. Only the
grizzly has a good handle on just how much bigger it is than you.
As the character Bearclaw replied in my favorite movie, Jeremiah
Johnson, when asked by Jeremiah why they were hiding behind their
horses even though the elk could see their feet, “Elk don’t know how
many feet a horse has!”
True Predators
Even the most intimidating and dangerous of animals do not come into
the world programmed to kill humans, nor are they taught to hunt us.
We’re not on the menu of the following creatures:
African lions
great white sharks
polar bears
saltwater crocodiles
tigersPolar bears learn how to hunt seals; lions learn how to hunt gazelles
and zebras. Predators are dependent on their physical health and strength
to catch their next meal, so they have a great fear of getting injured. When
they first encounter you, their instinct is not to attack you and eat you but
(^256) | Survive!