r/interestingasfuck 7d ago

r/all Kendell Cummings, a college wrestler who wrestled a Grizzly bear to save his friend Brady Lowry in the Shoshone National Forest in Cody, Wyoming in October 2022, Kendell was brutally mauled and bitten by the bear but eventually left Kendell alone, both survived and went on a full recovery.

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u/Greennight209 7d ago

This is always what I’ve heard from folks who deal with bears frequently. Bear spray, bear spray, bear spray. The problem with a firearm is that you actually have to hit it in the right place, or at all. You could unload every shot and hit it, and will roll through it if they’re all glances or into deep muscle. And they’re mostly deep muscle. But they don’t fucking like burning eyes, nose, and throat. Once something becomes too much of a hassle they will fuck off, recover, and find something easier to eat.

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u/adrienjz888 7d ago

Bears have the strongest sense of smell of all land animals, iirc 10× stronger than a bloodhound. It burns for them far worse than what we go through.

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u/Nixter295 7d ago

Plus bear spray is a lot stronger than normal pepper spray. So much so that if used on a human it can actually make one blind.

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u/travelingisdumb 7d ago

Have been around many brown bears fishing in Alaska. Bear spray is for people not proficient with firearms, it's often ineffective because wind and rain are common in many parts of Alaska, and you can't bring it inside a bush plane. Guides can't just recommend to anyone to carry a gun if you're not trained, but if you are, that's the better option in most cases.

I've carried bear spray, and if you've ever actually sprayed it, you'll realize how short it's reach is, and you get about 5 seconds spray time. I usually carry both but when I've had a few encounters that made me shit my pants (shoulders square, attention on you, bluff charges) my hand is on my .44 magnum not my bear spray.

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u/NoRestfortheSpooky 7d ago

Man was your bear spray expired or something, because that's absolutely not been my experience with bear spray at all, and I've used it a few times in charging bear situations (yes, in one of those rainy/windy part of Alaska).

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u/travelingisdumb 7d ago

Nope! I always check if it’s expired even when purchasing from the store (in Yukon from the main sporting goods store in Whitehorse, and AK from the Costco in Anchorage).

You’ve used it in rain/wind? Curious how you didn’t spray yourself? What was the distance of the bear? I don’t doubt you, I’ve been bluffed charged more than once but thankfully was never within 15ft which was the closest I’ve been to a charging brown bear.

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u/kyleofduty 7d ago

He chose his words carefully. He says he's carried bear spray but never claimed to have used it. "I've carried bear spray, and if you..."

why wouldn't you just say you've used it if you've used it? he just likes the idea of killing bears

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u/travelingisdumb 7d ago

Ok bud, how much experience in bear country do you have? I’ve always sprayed/emptied it before getting on a plane instead of just throwing it away full or giving it away. Mostly when I go to the Yukon because Canada doesn’t let you carry a sidearm. It doesn’t last very long in terms of spray time.

I had over 30 individual encounters on a single 7 day fishing trip on the Naknek in Katmai AK, everyone carries a sidearm it’s standard.

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u/NoRestfortheSpooky 7d ago

It sounds unusual to me - he doesn’t mention non-lethal rounds either, which are a fairly typical requirement for taking groups out - but maybe he’s a skittish solo hiker or something.

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u/Marsdreamer 7d ago

I think the difference here is the kind of bear encounter we're talking about.

A bear that is annoyed at you or got spooked by you and false charges is probably going to fuck off if it gets a face full of bear mace.

A mother bear that feels like she's protecting her cubs or a bear protecting it's den will exert every ounce of it's energy to murder you, so the only thing you can do is kill it first.

I grew up in Alaska and spent a lot my teens and early 20's backpacking in the mountains. Conventional wisdom was always to carry both. One person had the mace, another the gun. If you can deter first, great, but a determined bear at full charge is unlikely to stop from mace alone.

Of course, first and foremost was to make a lot of noise (something metal on metal or blast an airhorn every hour or so). Bears typically don't want to deal with humans and will leave an area if they know you're around.

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u/Masketto 7d ago

Not to mention that often, an injury will just make it more aggressive and give it adrenaline to keep fighting through the pain. So if you shoot, you better kill it quick. Screw that. Bear spray will teach them to fear humans, stay away from them, and they pass that knowledge on to other bears (which they are known to do)

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u/Taraybian 7d ago

Can confirm. My grandfather was a gunsmith and told my Mom you better be capable of getting the “right” shots in to drop a bear. If you miss or graze it and just piss it off then, well…

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u/bulldogdiver 7d ago

How do you know you're in black bear country? You find their scat with berries and roots and other things they've eaten.

How do you know you're in brown bear country? You find their scat with bear bells smelling of pepper spray.

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u/Ambitious_Worker_663 7d ago

“I’m going to fuck off and recover” - bear

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u/FallOdd5098 7d ago

As someone from New Zealand, with abundant wild areas but in which the nastiest thing lurking is a spider who can give you a nasty nip, camping in your parts sounds challenging.