So I spent roughly half an hour last night surfing the internet looking for a way to survive a bear attack. None of them were very helpful.
You’d think the people writing the articles would try to be helpful and somewhat optimistic. Things like “By doing these actions, you too can survive a bear attack” would be nice. However, their tone was more like a goth kid trying to explain the meaning of life to you. “You probably made the bear angry and unless there’s a hill you can run up too with a Sherman tank waiting for you, you’re pretty much screwed.”
Thanks, Internet.
However, zookeeper and all around nature stud Jack Hanna has given us all new hope. Remember when he would bring snakes on the Late Night show to eat Jay Leno. Along with hoping the snakes would actually eat Leno, I always marveled at how calm Hanna was when handling the animals.
“This snake it the most poisonous in North America… and I’m going to put it in my armpit.”
He was just as calm two weeks ago hiking in Glacier Park with his wife Suzi and three other hikers. Walking on the Grinnell Glacier Trail, he encountered a Grizzly Bear and her two cubs.
Hanna had the group back track and get about 30 feet above the trail to let the Grizzlies walk by. One of the snotty cubs decided to stop and get fussy.
“The one youngster stops… and the hair starts going on its back and I said, ‘Oh shoot’,” Hanna told the Daily Interlake.
At this point, I would have done two things.
1. Wet my pants.
2. Pushed my fellow hikers down on the trail and make a run for it.
Hanna is not that kind of guy though, which makes sense. He’s the Chuck Norris of outdoor people and I’m the Kevin Federline of journalists.
He busted out the bear spray and laid down a cloud of smack down to ward of the bear. It came within ten feet before getting a wiff of the stuff, shook its head and bugged out.
Say hello to Jack Hanna, professional zoo person and grizzly bear enforcer. How many famous people can say they’ve came face-to-face with a large furry bear and survived?
Except for perhaps any guest stars on “Care Bears” nobody can really make that claim except for Hanna. I mean we can only imagine if the likes of Danny Bonaduce and Snooki were on that Glacier Park trail.
I saw this on The Adventure Guys blog. Pretty amazing.
Today, July 29, is Thank A Ranger Day.
What do you think about the change? I really like it. The new logo is crisp and sharp. It features the mountains of the northwest, the ocean waves of the coast and the desert sun. Pretty sweet.
