Bear Attack on Jogger in Glacier National Park

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/06/08/bnews/br13.txt
Grizzly bear bites jogger in Glacier National Park
Posted on June 8
By the Missoulian
WEST GLACIER - A jogger was injured in Glacier National Park Sunday when he encountered a grizzly bear while running on a backcountry trail on the park’s west side. Thomas Nerison, 60, of Kalispell, reported that he had been bitten by a grizzly bear at about 9:45 a.m. Sunday, while he was running on the Lake McDonald Valley Trail.

Nerison told an investigating ranger that he was trail running northeast about a mile or so from the Avalanche Lake trailhead when he heard what sounded like a dog barking and then galloping horses coming up the trail behind him.
He was not making any noise on the trail and he did not have bear spray with him. Nerison said he had just enough time to turn around and get off the trail about a foot when he saw what he estimated to be two 250-pound grizzly bears running toward him. ......

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Trail running in Grizz Country. Sounds like a good idea. NOT.

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bill-e-g
Trail running in Grizz Country. Sounds like a good idea. NOT.

Not only making yourself prey, but what about the 250 lb. grizzly thing? That's barely black bear size. Children at play.

And why didn't he get some photos?

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Quote
bill-e-g
Trail running in Grizz Country. Sounds like a good idea. NOT.

Sounds like he was acting like prey.

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bill-e-g
Trail running in Grizz Country. Sounds like a good idea. NOT.

I guess it depends on how fast you can run.
Turns out that human top speed is just slightly less than Grizzly, I guess ANY less is a problem. Humans would also have trouble with wart hogs, Black Mamba Snake and the Mongolian Wild Ass depending on athletic ability and distance. My personal time is going to be down there with the 3-toe sloth.



http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004737.html (Warning Pop-up infested website)
Speed of Animals
Most of the following measurements are for maximum speeds over approximate quarter-mile distances. Exceptions—which are included to give a wide range of animals—are the lion and elephant, whose speeds were clocked in the act of charging; the whippet, which was timed over a 200-yard course; the cheetah over a 100-yard distance; humans for a 15-yard segment of a 100-yard run; and the black mamba snake, six-lined race runner, spider, giant tortoise, three-toed sloth, and garden snail, which were measured over various small distances.

Animal Speed (mph)
Peregrine falcon 200.00+
Cheetah 70.00
Pronghorn antelope 61.00
Lion 50.00
Thomson's gazelle 50.00
Wildebeest 50.00
Quarter horse 47.50
Cape hunting dog 45.00
Elk 45.00
Coyote 43.00
Gray fox 42.00
Hyena 40.00
Ostrich 40.00
Zebra 40.00
Mongolian wild ass 40.00
Greyhound 39.35
Whippet 35.50
Jackal 35.00
Mule deer 35.00
Rabbit (domestic) 35.00
Giraffe 32.00
Reindeer 32.00
Cat (domestic) 30.00
Kangaroo 30.00
Grizzly bear 30.00
Wart hog 30.00
White-tailed deer 30.00
Human 27.89
Elephant 25.00
Black mamba snake 20.00
Six-lined race runner 18.00
Squirrel 12.00
Pig (domestic) 11.00
Chicken 9.00
House mouse 8.00
Spider (Tegenearia atrica) 1.17
Giant tortoise 0.17
Three-toed sloth 0.15
Garden snail 0.03
Source: Natural History Magazine, March 1974, copyright 1974; The American Museum of Natural History; and James G. Doherty, general curator, The Wildlife Conservation Society.

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Whoa!!!

You forgot

- 110

(Chick-on always gives 110%)

Straight down?

Actually after a drop kick.

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Old Dude

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eeek
Straight down?

No turkeys were harmed in the making of this episode (chickens were used instead):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iafzqOCaxA4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FXSnoy71Q4&feature=related

one one naught dot naught

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Old Dude

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bill-e-g
Whoa!!!

You forgot

- 110

(Chick-on always gives 110%)

GW (Goat Whisperer)(billy's much better half) says there's no such thingy as 110%, and since I am trying to curry favor with the Leader of the Pack, I staunchly agree!

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Bee
GW (Goat Whisperer)(billy's much better half) says there's no such thingy as 110%

Ever what a shuttle launch?

Don't distract me with any facts while I am trying to suck up to the Goat Whisperer!

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Bee
Don't distract me with any facts while I am trying to suck up to the Goat Whisperer!

You running for president?

The human can go that fast for about 10 seconds, then chow time

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Old Dude

I am adding this to this thread as this is under the general issue of bears in Glacier. St. Mary's is on the east end of Going to the Sun Highway, essentially on the opposite end of the park from Lake McDonald (site of the jogger biting episode). The eastern side of Glacier shares a border with the Blackfeet Reservation and special wildlife rules apply. There are frequent grizzly and cattle interactions on the reservation especially in the spring as grizzlies find the younger calves tasty. History buffs will remember that St. Mary's was one of the locations of a grizzly attack during the "Night of the Grizzlies".

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906090305

Four black bears killed near St. Mary Lodge

By KARL PUCKETT
Tribune Staff Writer
Four young black bears have been shot and killed at St. Mary Lodge and Resort in recent weeks for trying to raid the dump and hanging around the parking lot.
The close encounters thrilled tourists, but mortified Johnny Noe, one of the lodge owners.
"I don't want to see somebody get mauled in my parking lot," Noe said.
Two of the bears were shot, one after the other, by a lodge employee after they charged him at the dump site, Noe said.
The males were 2 to 3 years old, he said.
"Even for small bears, they were terrifying," said Noe, who was on the scene a few hundred yards east of the main lodge when the bears charged.
The two bears had previously walked through the lodge parking lot, prompting guests to take pictures, which Noe said presented a dangerous situation.
At that time, he chased off the bears in his pickup truck.
The bears shot by the lodge employee were acting aggressively, said Dan Carney, a wildlife biologist with the Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife Department.
The shootings are under investigation, he said.
The most recent incident came Friday, when the Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife Department captured one bear in a culvert trap near the dump. The bear was later shot. "It's tragic," Noe said.
Another bear was previously captured and killed by the tribal wildlife department. St. Mary Lodge is located outside the park, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and is privately operated....

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

O yeah, it doesn't SOUND like they were provoked....

Glacier National Park
Trail Runner Injured By Bear

A jogger was injured on Sunday morning in an encounter with a grizzly bear while running on a backcountry trail on the park’s west side. Thomas Nerison, 60, of Kalispell, Montana, reported that he had been bitten by a grizzly bear at about 9:45 a.m. while he was running on the Lake McDonald Valley Trail in Lake McDonald Valley. Nerison told an investigating ranger that he was running northeast on the trail about one to one-and-a- half miles from the Avalanche Lake trailhead when he heard what he described as the sound of a dog barking, then galloping horses coming up the trail behind him. Nerison said he had just enough time to turn around and get about a foot off the trail when he saw what he estimated to be two 250-pound grizzly bears running toward him. Nerison said that he believed the bears were running from something that had startled them and that one of the bears stopped in close proximity to him. He kicked the bear, then fell down. The bear bit him twice as he continued to kick and poke the bear with sticks. The bear soon lost interest in him, moved away, then went uphill from the trail. Nerison walked downhill and cross country to the Going-to-the-Sun Road, where he got a ride from a visitor back to his own car at the Avalanche trailhead. He then drove himself to the Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s emergency room, where he received medical treatment. During an interview after the incident, Nerison told a ranger that he normally carries bear spray, but that he did not have it with him on this occasion.

Injured Jogger describes event in detail:

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/06/10/bnews/br33.prt


Victim of grizzly attack talks about ordeal
Posted on June 10

JIM MANN, Daily Inter Lake

KALISPELL - It happened in a flash, and Thomas Nerison did not have the bear spray he almost always carries on his runs in Glacier National Park.

The 60-year-old Kalispell man was on the Lake McDonald Valley Trail on Sunday morning, attempting to rendezvous with a group of fellow runners, when he heard a dog bark.

"Within a minute of hearing that dog bark, I heard a commotion behind me," Nerison said. "I saw two grizzly bears running down the trail in the same direction I was going but moving much faster."

There was no time to climb a tree, no time to even get out of the way.......

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

A little more on bears in Glacier. I believe this is different bear from the 4 bears mentioned above, discusses hazing policy in Glacier:

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/05/29/news/mtregional/news11.prt

Glacier black bear accidentally killed
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
WEST GLACIER - A black bear was accidentally killed in Glacier National Park last week, while rangers were working to haze it away from buildings in the St. Mary area.
“It was very unfortunate,” said park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt, who added that it was also very rare.
On a given summer's day, she said, there's usually at least one bear hazing under way somewhere in the park. Many hundreds of bears have been saved by successful hazing, she said - bears that previously would have been killed for meddling too close to humans.
For more than two decades, park rangers have worked to keep bears alive in the wild by scaring them away from human housing. They've fired nonlethal rubber bullets at both black and grizzly bears, have launched stinging beanbag rounds, have sounded horns and sirens, have pursued bears with trained dogs.
And they also have shot “cracker rounds” in the general direction of bothersome bears, using shotguns to fire off what are essentially big firecrackers that explode near the animals and discourage them from coming back to human sites.
That, Vanderbilt said, is exactly what two rangers were doing last Friday - using cracker shells to scare a bear from behind the shop buildings at St. Mary. It was, she said, “routine,” aimed at driving the bear back into the wild before it became habituated.
But when they returned the next day, they found the bear dead. A necropsy determined the cracker shell had actually hit the bear, piercing its hide before exploding........

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan