It’s unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a bear in the ocean, but apparently, it’s a possibility.

I have questions.

June 12 (UPI) — Visitors to a Florida beach were in for a surprise when a black bear was spotted swimming side-by-side with their fellow beachgoers.

Multiple visitors to the crowded beach in Destin captured video when the bear emerged from the ocean and swam next to human beachgoers before making its way to shore.

“The bear was out pretty far,” Chris Barron, who recorded footage of the bear, told WTVT-TV. “A lot of people started swimming in. I was worried it was a shark. I walked over and thought it was a dog.”

Barron said the bear was swimming right by his brother and 12-year-old son.

“At this point I realized it was a bear and started videoing. It kept swimming in. He got to shore, shook off, and ran into the brush in the sand dunes,” Barron said. “I think most people were shocked instead of being scared. No one expected to see a bear in the Gulf of Mexico.”

This is remarkable video. It’s interesting how they both seem to go for the back, or perhaps the spine.

This isn’t good news for ranchers and residents. Of course, the government, either purposefully or through incompetence, was dragging its feet.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will study delisting populations of grizzlies near Yellowstone and Glacier national parks

Idaho’s audacious bid to strip grizzly bears of Endangered Species Act protection was rejected by the Biden administration Friday.

But its neighbors Montana and Wyoming had better luck. Responding to delisting petitions from all three states, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said bear numbers in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems may be strong enough to qualify as distinct populations that can be considered for delisting. The agency will spend the next year collecting data to determine if each of those populations are indeed healthy enough to move from federal to state management.

The service dismissed Idaho’s much more expansive request that grizzly bears across the country be stripped of their threatened and endangered status. The decision came just a day after Idaho Gov. Brad Little threatened to sue the agency for failing to act on the state’s petition, submitted last March, within the required 90 days.

“The response is seven months late, and it took a threat of legal action from the State of Idaho to simply receive a response,” Little said in a prepared statement. “While we continue to evaluate the decision from (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), this is another example of federal overreach and appears to have a disproportionate impact on North Idaho.”

There are about 1,000 grizzlies each in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, which are centered around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

[…]

Cowboy State Daily.

A retired Canadian fish and wildlife agent has voiced concern that black bears are “hunting” humans more frequently in Alberta, but that’s not a big concern in Wyoming, some biologists said.

Veteran wildlife agent Murray Bates says he’s noticed a disturbing shift in the pattern of black bear behavior over the course of his 34-year career.

“Grizzlies were protecting their territory, young and food, but certainly, on occasion, killing a human,” he said. “The key word here is hunt. During my tenure I was starting to notice a shift in black bears attacking humans and grizzlies maintaining traditional patterns of attack or kill.

“The records and experts may state otherwise, but I found myself investigating more complaints of black bears tracking humans as prey, then killing and feeding on them,” Bates added.

[ … ]

“I would still rather encounter a predatory black bear than being involved in a surprise encounter with a grizzly bear at a carcass; time is not on your side in the latter whereas with a proper response a predatory black bear can be deterred (first choice is bear spray, followed by standing your ground and fighting with rocks, sticks, and etc.),” he said.

I’m not surprised.  When hunting is discouraged and guns are outlawed, the predators will roam free to do what they want.

Suck it up, Canadians.  There’s more to come with the impending laws against basically any firearm, including hunting with bolt action rifles.  Get used to it, change your government, or carry non-permissively.

And as for his advice to “stand your ground,” that’s not even done in America without a weapon.  The whole notion is legalization of the use of weapons in stand your ground cases rather than having a duty to retreat.

It’s probably not a big concern for Wyoming because they carry guns.

Video here. News story here.

Goldsby’s husband, Thomas, was out walking their elderly dog, Dandy, at about 4:45 a.m. along Main Street when he ran into a Knoxville police officer shining his spotlight along the First Baptist Church lawn.

The officer rolled down his window and asked him if he had seen a bear.

[…]

Bear sightings in Knoxville occur with some frequency. Erland [PD Spokespuppet] said he recalled one instance, about three years ago, when a bear refused to leave a tree in Morningside Gardens Apartments in the Five Points neighborhood. In that instance, TWRA wildlife officers tranquilized the bear and relocated it to a forest, he said.

Bear populations are growing in Tennessee, but it is more common to see bears in the spring and summer, according to the TWRA website.

East Tennessee’s black bears are normally elusive and shy animals, and unless they have become accustomed to human food sources, they tend to avoid people, the website says.

Any local can tell you that that is a bald-faced lie. The article had just said sightings “occur with some frequency,” which is much closer to the truth. It’s never good to see a bear in winter. Winter bears are usually hungry and may have no fixed den location. They should be avoided. Info about bear dens is here and here. I suspect they’re living within city limits and certainly in Knox County.

If you encounter a bear at close range, the TWRA advises, “Make your presence known by yelling and shouting at the bear in an attempt to scare it away. If a bear is reluctant to leave then proceed to throw rocks or other objects at the bear while continuing to yell. Portray yourself as the dominant animal and do not back down. If a bear is close enough that you feel uncomfortable, slowly back away, continuing to yell while watching the bear at all times. Never run from a black bear as this may trigger a natural response to chase.”

Discharging a firearm inside city limits is illegal, but self-defense, which the State has preeminence over, is not. I generally carry hollow points unless purposefully going to a less populated region; that may have to change. Run by communists and being overwhelmed with carpetbagging leftists who destroyed Maryland, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts, Knoxville is turning into an unpleasant place to live; bears are the least of its problems.

Source:

The New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Council will vote Tuesday on a proposal to revive the state’s bear hunting season.

The bear hunting season could be returning to New Jersey after farmers and residents have complained about the surging black bear population and the Department of Environmental Protection reporting that encounters with bears have increased by 237% over 2021 numbers, according to reporting from News 12 New Jersey.

Those factors have prompted Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to reconsider his stance on the season, which he canceled in part starting in 2018 and entirely last year, following through on a promise he made to animal rights activists during his 2017 election campaign.

“Since the outset of my administration, I have promised to ground every difficult decision on the latest science and evidence in order to protect our communities,” Murphy said in a statement last week while signaling support for reviving the hunt.

“From the data we have analyzed to the stories we have heard from families across the state, it is clear that New Jersey’s black bear population is growing significantly, and nonlethal bear management strategies alone are not enough to mitigate this trend.”

Murphy’s change of heart would be a welcome one for many state residents who have complained of increased encounters with bears that have terrified residents and damaged crops and livestock.

“They really knock a lot of corn down, eat a lot of corn and they’ll take anywhere from 5% to 25% of a field. We’ve seen some fields that have been 70% decimated this year,” Phillip Broadhecker, a farmer from Hampton Township, told News 12. “You can actually go on to Google maps and look at Earth views in the fall of fields and see circles and round spots in fields, and it’s astounding how bad it is.”

Broadhecker said the damage doesn’t stop at crops, noting that livestock and even people’s pets have been the targets of the growing population of bears.

“We’ve got a lot of livestock that have been killed or injured up here. Goats, chickens, pigs, small horses, even people’s dogs,” he said.

Video:

Well hello there!

A bear seems to have made itself at home in a Chatsworth neighborhood and one homeowner captured some of its antics on video.

Dr. Alon Antebi told FOX 11 the bear has wandered the neighborhood since Labor Day.

The bear was seen cooling off in the pool and even hopping into the jacuzzi.

But Dr. Antebi says the bear also raids their outdoor kitchen and spills beer from the fridge.

There’s also concern that the bear is getting more aggressive.

“Yesterday we were having morning coffee and he came up literally three feet away from our glass door, our dogs started barking so he ran off, went into the pool, then jumped the fence.”

Animal control has told Dr. Antebi since he lives in the bear’s natural habitat there’s not much they can do unless the bear becomes more aggressive.

“Unless the bear becomes aggressive”!?! So sorry, once you’re dead, we’ll come to help you.

One article said it was a Grizzly. But in LA? Despite the color of the bear being light brown to tan, the body type is not that of Grizz. Blacks can range in color. Size can be deceptive. What do you think: Ursus americanus or Ursus arctos horribilis? Or maybe the Mexican Grizz isn’t really extinct?

Via Instapundit.

I don’t know where this was.  I paused the video enough times to see that he was using a pistol.  I’m guessing that this was a sow with two cubs on the larger end of things and felt a bit threatened.

He did the right things as best as I can tell.

Bro almost became a victim 💀😭 pic.twitter.com/V5HER3AzGM

— Simba (@m0e_almighty) September 4, 2022

F&S.

A man in the ski town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado shot and killed a black bear that entered his home in the middle of the night. According to the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife (CPW), homeowner Ken Mauldin dispatched the bruin with a .40 caliber Glock handgun after it opened and walked through an exterior door.

“The door was unlocked, and it’s one of the older-style lever door handles. So, the bear pushed on that to get the door open,” CPW public information officer Rachel Gonzalez tells F&S. “[Mauldin] was alerted when his wife screamed. It was just after 2 a.m. when we received the incident notification.”

Three things pop into my mind.

First, this is yet another anecdote that justifies carry inside the home.

Second, this anecdote justifies closing and locking the door.

Third, that’s a lot of rounds.  Nine rounds to put this bear down.  This advocates for accuracy or high capacity, or preferably both.

We’ve got some big, bad boys back East too.  Be careful in the bush.  Carry a large bore gun with you when you venture out.  I take it the only thing that stopped this fight was the fact that they were too winded to carry on.