You can hear the fear in this female hiker’s voice as pleads with a grizzly not to come any closer; “Please don’t come here. Thank you, please go,” she quivers with a politeness that’s at odds with the scary encounter.
And yet she captures it all on video. Brave? Daft? Or just how we’re hard-wired to react in the social media age?
The woman ran into the bear – which at time looks to be just a few feet away – at Glacier National Park in Montana. While it clearly shows some interest in her, it luckily didn’t ultimately engage with her.
The hiker in this instance seems to have done all the right things. A caption says that she, “got low, got out her bear spray”, which goes along with the advice our expert gives about a grizzly encounter in our article What to do if you meet a bear, which is:
1) Don’t try to run – a grizzly or brown bear can easily outrun you and it may trigger an aggressive response
2) Play dead – if you are approached by a grizzly or brown bear, lay flat on your stomach with your hands clasped around your neck
3) Spread your legs – this makes it more difficult for the bear to turn you over
4) Fight back – if the attack becomes overly aggressive and if you have no other choice, fight back, ideally with bear spray
You can see the bear spray creep into the frame right at the end of the clip, when, thankfully, the bear heads off and away. Either that, or it’s hiding behind that tree…
This article by Dave Golder was first published by Advnture on 16 July 2024. Lead Image: BRYANT AARDEMA -BRYANTS WILDLIFE IMAGES / MOMENT VIA GETTY.
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