Potter: Surviving baby bears

Bear attacks have been big in the news lately, so I went to Bear World on Saturday to learn how to survive a bear attack.

Instead, I learned from experts that if I had more common sense, I wouldn’t have to worry about an attack (you know, that whole “prevention is best” stuff I usually ignore).

Oh, and I also learned to be really, really afraid of baby bears.

Bear World

My baby-bear fear started right off the bat, because of my lack of common sense.

“Can I jump into the baby bear enclosure to get some photos?” I asked Bear World owner Courtney Ferguson.

“No,” he responded, adding (with a look telling me I’m just a little bit dim-witted) that baby bears have teeth and claws too. He said the cute little guy just over the fence could maim and possibly kill me.

“That baby bear would cross the enclosure like that,” he said, snapping his fingers, “and knock you right over.”

Before talking with the people at Bear World, I thought I knew why baby bears are dangerous in the wild: because they have big, protective moms. I have never been afraid of the actual baby bear itself. Now I am.

And yet, at the same time, learning about bears made me feel much less afraid of them generally, because I understand them more and can act more appropriately when I see them. Driving through the park and seeing all the big bears, I thought, “I know you and your babies. We have an understanding. You’re not that scary.”

But my fear came back, when my wife asked me what would happen if I jumped out of the car and she drove off.

So I asked Courtney, and he said I should never see a bear in the first place.

Courtney’s Advice

His biggest advice was to be loud. I knew that being loud kept bears away. I’ve always thought of “loud” as just the natural loud of people talking. But I’d never actually thought about what being loud means when I’m alone.

I jokingly asked Courtney, “So I should just sing and have loud conversations with myself?”

He responded (with the same “You’re kind of dumb” look), “Yes.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to pretend I wasn’t kidding at all.

I don’t think he fell for it, but he proceeded to give me more advice, two things I had never heard of: wearing bells tied through my shoelaces and intentionally stepping on twigs and stomping around.

In my fantasy where I’m some kind of stealthy hunter person, I usually try to walk as quietly as possible when I hike by myself. I know I don’t succeed very well at all, but I might succeed well enough not to scare a bear away.

What Courtney told me made me feel confident and feel like an “in-the-know” bear survivalist.

So now, if I see a baby bear, I will run.

But wait — I got a “lack-of-common-sense” look on that one too.

I mean, if I see a baby bear I will back away slowly while stepping on twigs and shaking my shoelace bells singing an improvised “Baby Bears Scare the Crap Out of Me” song at the top of my lungs and, perhaps, peeing myself just a little.