A bear extremely rarely attacks a person: only if it is disturbed in its winter den, wounded, or taken by surprise with prey. Dangerous are female bears who have cubs with them, adult males during the rut, and “connecting rods.”
Some of our multi-day tours take place in areas where bears live, and the likelihood of encountering them is high. At the beginning of summer, they can be seen near rivers and streams, and from mid-summer they go into valleys rich in berries, inhabiting mountain slopes with dwarf cedar forests.
- The main thing is to avoid a sudden meeting with a predator, otherwise everything can end, as they say, in different ways. To do this:
- Don’t walk alone, especially in the forest. It’s best to have at least three of us, and not like the Indians, trying not to let a single twig crunch under our feet, but on the contrary, noisily enough, with jokes and jokes, so that the bears don’t have to listen. Then they will leave early.
- Avoid areas with tall grass in the forest, but rather move through open areas.
- Rest only in open areas with good visibility.
- Don’t fish where bears fish.
- Take every precaution to avoid leaving waste, especially around camp and where you fish. Moreover, there is no point in burying them; bears have an excellent sense of smell, and they will easily dig them up. Only burn on a fire, canned food cans also be burned. Products must be placed in sealed bags or the like. All this is done so as not to attract bears, otherwise they will very quickly get used to prowling nearby, which will endanger not only you personally, but also other people. When the same bear periodically appears near the camp, due to safety requirements you have to send a request to shoot it, sad as it may be.
- If you see a bear and it doesn’t see you, calmly leave.
- If the bear saw you, but did not smell you (the wind is from him), identify yourself with noise and prepare a flare or gas cylinder. Bears for the most part are curious animals, especially young ones, and short-sighted (short-sighted), and can come close to understand who they are dealing with, but this happens extremely rarely.
- If the bear comes close, you need to make noise and portray your decisive intentions, but not aggressiveness. Never growl! Just speak in an even, confident voice so that the beast recognizes you as a human. Light the flare, wave it in different directions, you can throw it towards the bear, but under no circumstances run away.
- You can retreat in case of immediate aggressiveness of the predator, when there is no other way out, that is, the animal is close and is coming decisively towards you, but only if you notice a tall tree nearby that you can climb, or a hut.)) On a tree, sometimes you can escape from an adult, heavy bear, but not from a young, vigorous and light one.
- Retreat, backing diagonally, never turn your back to the bear, otherwise he will consider you prey and will inevitably overtake you. It is impossible to escape from the bear in open areas; it reaches speeds of up to 60 km/h, like a dog, and the blow of its paw is fast and powerful, like a shot.
- If there is nowhere to run and hide, raise some large object above your head (backpack, tripod, paddle) and scream at the top of your lungs. Any unexpected action also helps, for example, opening an umbrella towards a bear. It’s even better if big expressive eyes are painted on the umbrella.
- If you nevertheless start running away from the bear, and he chases you, and there are no trees nearby to climb, throw your things, backpack, jacket, hat, etc. on the ground. The bear will be distracted by them and, most likely, will stop.
- If small bear cubs suddenly run out at you, you must immediately move away from them, do not stand or take photographs, because there will definitely be a bear nearby. God forbid you end up between cubs and a mother bear! She will immediately run as fast as she can to save them, right at you, and this will be the last thing you see in your life.
- Your guide will tell you how to behave in the current situation and will protect you with all available means.
- Always give way to the bear, because these are his roads.
- The bear is a wild and watchful animal. In 99% of cases it leaves when meeting a person. But we must not forget that for us his behavior is absolutely unpredictable (except for point 14. There are a lot of bears in Yakutia. But you cannot immediately prepare yourself for the fact that you must protect yourself from a bear. First of all, you came to his house, and if you behave naturally, then the bear will treat you as part of his world.
Effective means for scaring away bears are various flares, the sound of a flare gun, and signal pistols, but in dry weather their use is extremely undesirable in order to avoid a fire. In the mountains, even with a small, imperceptible spark, reindeer moss can ignite and the fire will instantly engulf a large area. Use such remedies only in extreme cases!
REMINDER FOR TOURIST:
You must:
DO NOT leave camp without warning the instructor.
DO NOT pollute parking areas and overnight stays with food and other waste. Collect all garbage in the places indicated by the instructor (see above).
DO NOT light fires in areas not designated for this purpose.
DO NOT leave fire unattended.
DO NOT destroy living trees.
DO NOT destroy anthills and bird nests.
DO NOT collect any flowers, herbs, berries or mushrooms without the instructor’s permission.
DO NOT catch birds or animals.
DO NOT feed bears by hand or in general, and do not take pictures hugging them!
