Those damn bears totally ignored me. At this beach family of bears walked past my tent and did not even bother to investigate. https://youtu.be/IK0wJ9y266I?si=TokV4ewiEvhl5Qev&t=1470
The reason was probably that I really did not have anything to eat. Just some kilos of flour for rainy days. I was living on fish and berries for 3 months.
The reason was that they weren’t hungry.
Bears don’t randomly kill and eat every animal they encounter.
Side note, the ffmpeg stabilization works surprisingly well -- thanks for sharing your commands in the YT comment!
Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.
(edit - a little researching and I see this is the same post that I vouched after it was flagged, pleased to see the system lets good links back)
While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only a few people there.
The only thing I remember (man, that was awhile ago) was how personable Herzog was. He told the story of his start, that when he was just a very young teenager, he stole (stole!) a rather expensive camera to shoot his first story. "You stole it?" someone conversationally asked? "Yes, I REALLY wanted to film," Hertzog gleefully replied.
Impish, obliquely egotistical, kind and gifted.
He's the most palatable example of a Nietzsche-an superman
When we finally get our shit together and send people to Mars despite that being a one-way trip, I'm glad there will be volunteers who will sign up for that and go be pioneers. I hope they get a school named after them.
Good point though!
At least he didn't get his girlfriend eaten by a bear I suppose.
That will happen with all of us probably, whether it's a bus, a bathtub, or a senior living apartment. When I read Into the Wild I had the same feelings that this arrogant idiot deserved to die.
Now that I'm older and I can feel the heat death of me and everything I've touched I'm starting to second guess that feeling. We're all arrogant, ignorant, and selfish, and dying is going to most likely hurt no matter how it happens. Why not be a fool?
He did not understand bears, just saw them how he wanted them to be and actually did them a severe disservice!
Going outside of you comfort zone is valuable though, but only if done with knowledge of your own limits and consequences!
e.g. I live in the Alps and we have much too many stupid tourists' emergencies in the mountains due to ignorance than should be. They know nothing about the mountains, the tour, how weather is up there, what equipment and clothing to bring and wear and completely disregard advice of locals. Then Mountain Rescue risk their lives and health to get them down. Most of them volunteers no less!
I can't imagine what disservice was done. A guy hung around bears for a while, and one ate him and his girlfriend.
To the bears literally nothing happened of note.
They ate an exotic meal.
Except this isn't really true. Humans throughout history are invariably tribal, not solitary. Their solitary pursuits are in many ways profoundly modern and in keeping with the entire tradition of solipsistic modernity.
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will.
But...so? The same could be said if they moved to any developing country (I live in a developing country) but nobody is valorising that in the same way.
But how is it the unknown if anyone with half a brain can predict what will happen to them?
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will
That is true, but it is not like the only way to experience the wilderness is by being reckless. There is a ton of people enjoying this kind of thing without getting bears killed for no good reason.
Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.
I'm quite comfortable living an ordinary comfortable life and preparing in advance for novel experiences, but I'm glad some people throw caution to the wind and chance it. It takes all sorts to make the world.
You're very privileged to be able to think this way. And very naïve.
A lot of people in our world spend a lot of time trying not to die, and they don't think, "wow, this is really living" while they're scrabbling for survival.
I've been in a few situations where death was close and I don't think "wow, I was really living then".
At best I thought "well that fucking sucked", at worst I spent years recovering from PTSD.
> Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.
Now this is pod-racing.
I'm sorry you feel you've been missing out by living a safe and comfortable life, but you really haven't missed out at all.
But shit, just go skydiving or mountaineering, get this weird mindset out of your system.
So here's what they did: they formed a group and worked together. You might even call it "society".
Wow, really.
Supertramp wasn't "going outside the comfort zone of normies", he was making very bad, very stupid decisions that inflicted suffering on those he loved.
Oh, and the people who had to recover his corpse.
Yeah, fuck those normies and their "maps" and "bushcraft relevant to their ecosystem", this guy was the real deal huh.
No point in learning from others, just wing it and die a pointless needless death.
> I think it's worth exploring and celebrating.
I feel that this points to a certain existential angst you may be feeling, but please let me assure you that dying alone and scared like these two munters is not the way to resolve it.
And for the love of all that's holy, please stop romanticising selfish idiots.
The only nice thing I can say about Supertramp is that he didn't directly endanger anyone else, unlike the guy who got his girlfriend eaten by bears.
Oh we all know what this was. It was someone doing something stupid and filming it. He can pretend that he was studying behavior but he broke that mirror when he started interacting with bears. This was someone creating footage in order to market that footage and support his lifestyle, no different than people in wingsuits doing dangerous stunts for clicks. Both were "experts" in the thing they were doing, right up until that thing killed them.
But broadly, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work changed my thinking a bit on when I see people doing brave (and/or perhaps goddamn stupid) stuff like this. Skin in the game is powerful.
There is something to be said for -- "as long as you're ONLY putting yourself in harm's way, do your thing."
Again, I think playing around with bears is dumb as all hell, but for (an admittedly different) example, I no longer make fun of the Lifelock guy. Went from idiot to hero in my book.
There was a critical difference between these cases. Early humans grew up within nature so they had a lot of skill and knowledge. I loved Into the Wild and thought I identified with Christopher McCandless too. But the way he packed was not conducive with survival. He sadly didn’t know enough to know how much danger he put himself in.
There is a lot to mourn and a lot to learn. But there’s really nothing to celebrate - these were complicated people who behaved like they had a death wish. Early humans had a survival wish and while it didn’t always work out, the motivation was different.
God, I remember watching the scene in "Grizzly Man" in which Werner Herzog listens to this exact audio recording. Even via proxy, it's very hard to stomach.
https://youtu.be/IP2BQLOWi4M?si=yy76XPhS6woyyA86&t=170
In Herzog's own words:
> It's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life. Being shocked like that, I told her, "You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy [the tape]. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time."
Also, joints make a distinctive noise when being... decoupled. But I suspect the narration may have helped nail down which joint was in play.
So, really straightforward, in the context of bears eating people, someone implied that a cat will toy with you to death. I asked for evidence that they do this with primates, someone shared an anecdote about deer that isn't relevant to "bears eating people".
I'm not saying primates are exceptional, rather, that the story about deer is irrelevant.
Primate == food; Deer == food
Why would one food be different?
Would you admit that it's relevant to "big cats eating animals"?
Another thing worth noting - most cats like to eat their prey intestines first without caring whether or not it's alive (for pre-digested fiber and other nutrients not common in meat). For larger cats that often hunt by leaping from above and breaking the neck in one stroke the prey will probably be dead, but otherwise they're probably not.
Our cat has only access to a confined (extremely high walls) garden (largely left to grow wild for environmental reasons) due to proximity to a road where people drive extremely badly, and still manages to occasionally succeed at bringing something in, usually dumping it at someone’s feet and going “ok you do it”.
https://www.themirror.com/news/world-news/horror-footage-sho...
"The tiger was seen batting the young man like a toy as he held his hands in prayer. Masqood was grabbed by the neck as terrified witnesses began throwing sticks and stones, shooting at the animal in an attempt to distract it in a desperate bid to save Masqood.
One witness recalled racing over to the enclosure after hearing Masqood's screams. There, he saw Masqood locked in the tiger's jaws, "writhing badly in pain". He added that Masqood "kept suffering for the next 10-15 minutes" with another witness saying Vijay the tiger kept "roaming around" the enclosure, carrying Masqood by his neck."
I don't think it's considered unusual, I've heard it a few times before. Stories you hear will be animals with human exposure generally. If you want to get deep into it that's a thesis. But big cats not killing primates quickly seems not unusual.
Dont worry, not a violent attack. This is a black bear digging into a girl's kayak as she yells at it. Notice how the bear ignores her pleadings. I have personally shouted at and scared away bears (bc, black bears). They do respond. But once they decide you are not a threat, or heaven help you food, they will ignore any noise you make. This girl's high-pitched squeals fall on deaf ears. The fuzzy dog-like intelligent animal becomes a monster.
Fyi, the girl's progressively higher pitch may do well to attract help from other humans, but wont work on a predator. You want to sound intimidating and big, not small and weak. Of course you aren't ever going to sound bigger than a grizzly in feeding mode. At that point your only hope is something unnatural like a bearbanger (firework) gunshot or metallic sound, something to break the predator's confidence. Sounding like food won't help.
5.56mm is a very small cartridge for game that large, and with full auto you will spray wide and in a few seconds have an empty mag. Besides, within 10 feet everything that can go wrong has gone wrong and you will likely get mauled anyway. Large magazine rifles with backup pistols do have a niche in hunting packs of aggressive wild boars in close quarters, but that is an exceedingly dangerous hobby best left to those with a background in door-kicking.
Also, a lot of them disappear on the ice each year.
You also aren’t going to get a fully automatic one as a civilian without a massive amount of paperwork. A military M4 is even less adequate due to the short barrel length.
Typically, a 12 gauge with 3” slugs is the minimum ‘good idea’ big bear defense gun.
45-70 with modern (high pressure) loads, or a 30-06 with heavy bullets (200gr partitions) are also considered good to adequate - at least for Kodiak brown, which is close.
The issue is with shot placement.
Someone successfully defended themselves against a Kodiak brown bear attack with a 9mm because they were lucky and got a great shot through the nasal cavity from 6-8ft away. Albeit with extremely hot ammo. [https://www.americanhunter.org/content/alaska-outfitter-defe...]
do not underestimate how difficult or dangerous that shot would be to make. The shooter had been a hunting guide in that area for 30 years.
The same bear, if the shot was a couple inches higher, would have been able to keep going even if hit with a 12 gauge slug. They have highly armored skulls. [https://www.reddit.com/r/badassanimals/comments/14die7f/kodi...] Males in particular are also used to (and regularly do) literally fight grizzly bears, so are not cowardly opponents.
Many people disappear in that area every year, while armed. Eaten by bears is the presumed cause for a significant portion of them, but no one can tell for sure since the bodies never get found.
The US Air Force used to issue (literal) bazookas to airmen it stationed above the arctic circle as it was the only adequate man portable weapon they had that would consistently and reliably work if they could hit the bear with it.
Because that is not how I would describe the experience. Especially for registered machine guns. Also, it’s $200 except for AOW which is $5.
- Live in a Class 3 friendly state (so no living in California and then flying to Alaska for a trip)
- Form the gun trust (good idea).
- get yourself and any other controlling parties fingerprinted (the special way the ATF wants)
- get passport photos of yourself and any other controlling parties
- fill out the form 4 just right in the esoteric way they need
- then submit it all and wait 6 months to a year for them to return the stamped paperwork so you can actually possess the item. If you did everything right.
- if you messed something up, either redo it and go back to the front of the line, or (if you’re lucky) amend it ASAP when the examiner reaches out to you randomly when they find the problem.
Oh and a beat up but transferable M16 is what, $20-30k right now? More if in better condition?
That may not seem like a lot of paperwork to you, but for most Americans it definitely is. Oh, and you need to carry the stamped form 4 with you in the field, in case a cop runs across you and wants to be sure it’s legal.
Also, way outside the actual use case here, which is something to drag around in wilderness conditions that will make an angry polar bear stop trying to eat you at a moments notice. Preferably that can be abused and mistreated without causing problems too.
Which a $500 pump 12 gauge shotgun you can buy over the counter at any gun store is quite capable of doing very well with decent ammo.
And won’t require a 5320.20 be submitted (and take a month or more to get back to you) if you want to cross state lines.
Also, Canada is generally okay with pump shotguns, not with machine guns (registered in the US or not), and a lot of folks going to Alaska want to be able to drive over the border at some point.
I’m really curious what the odds would be of anyone making a fuss in legit polar bear territory though, hah.
(Apparently, yes I am that kind of nerd too)
As someone that routinely arms themselves against grizzlies and has had hostile encounters where I have scared them off with gun shots, I basically refuse to carry anything smaller than 10 mm with Underwood Dangerous Game rounds, and even that is a tradeoff. There are plenty of stories of people killing grizzlies with smaller rounds, but what there aren't are stories of people shooting grizzlies with very big rounds, and the grizzlies not dying. Whereas 357 magnum, 9 mm, etc, all take a lot of rounds to kill on average. 44 magnum is pretty much "sufficient" and if you go to rifles, center mass from a +P hardcast 45-70 will drop any grizzly in one shot. Even out of an 18" barrel. The Marlin 1895 has grown a reputation among bush pilots for that reason.
These debates rage on endlessly because they're entertaining, but ultimately the human with the gun is 50%+ of the equation...not the gun.
If you actually care to survive, listen to this great talk before heading out to bear country https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PExlT-5VU-Y
The brave part Brave I get that. Heroic, not so much.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wyoming-college-wrestlers-recount-...
It seems like they survived the initial attack by sticking their hands balls deep into the bear's mouth while it was attacking. They took compound bone fractures and one of them got a bicep nearly ripped off. Bear was persistent and attacked twice. Tried to bury one of them in the dirt (for the cubs) and left. They managed to escape with some very haggard injuries. Bottom line is I wouldn't go deep into grizzly territory unless I had a twelve gauge with 00 buck shot. Inland grizzly bears have dwindling fish stock and they hunt large game and they're wildly aggressive. Yellowstone had 62 instances of bears charging hikers in 2011 from what I saw.
But yeah, I'd want bear spray and a gun as plan b.
In pursuit of this, he's frequently bent the facts in his other "documentaries" to achieve the narrative that he's aiming for. I vouched for the parent comment because I think it's a view that should be discussed rather than suppressed. I like his art, but equating a Herzog documentary with factual truth is likely to end badly.
I've only skimmed it (and I don't have time to read it closer today) but this looks to be a decent academic paper that explores some of the problems with Grizzly Man:
Conceiving Grizzly Man through the "Powers of the False"
...
But is Grizzly Man a documentary at all? Is it a "true" or appropriate representation of reality? Grizzly Man engages in "creative falsification" -- a cinematic concept theorized by Gilles Deleuze in which the filmmaker generates optical images which bond to virtual images (or images that evoke a people's general past, fantasies, and dreams) to reveal some representation of "truth"
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2008/june-2008/...
It is more akin to the idea that all perception, thought, meaning, and opinions operate in a realm distinct from the material world.
The following sentences after your quote make this clear.
>But is Grizzly Man a documentary at all? Is it a "true" or appropriate representation of reality? Most scholars presently writing on documentary posit that the duplication of realities through cinema is always fictional because of its use of rhetorical figures and emblematic symbolism, regardless of claims of objectivity or historical significance. As a filmmaker, Herzog shares this ideological: all documentary is false even if it conveys the myth of objectivity
Maybe I'm misremembering but I don't remember this "documentary" having any narrative or facts. It's not trying to teach you anything reality, it just seems to be about 2 people perspectives about living in nature amongst bears. Again, it was a while ago since I watched it so maybe I'm not remembering accurately.
Please help me with this logic because there's absolutely nothing funny about this film which is arguably one of the most disturbing ever made.
All those pretty birds you see are like one mistake and bit of bad luck from being ripped to shreds—at all times. Yikes.
They will respect animals in their "family" herd, but don't have this restriction against cattle from other herds or species that are not defending, specially when not feed accurately by the owners (If they guard sheep they can still see young cows as fair game).
The main difference between wolves and shepherd dogs is that dogs aren't neither afraid to cows or men.
The advice I grew up with (in swedish bear country) is to do these things, in order:
1. Make noise while in the woods, bears will generally avoid you if they know you are there. You don’t want to startle a bear.
2. If charged, stay calm, make yourself big and talk to the bear, move slowly.
3. If attacked, play dead.
With luck, the bear will lose interest once it doesn’t perceive you as a threat. If it’s hungry, well, bad luck. There have been cases of people scaring bears off by punching them in the nose, so as a final resort I guess that’s something to try.
And horses¹. And deer².
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/upload/03-109_KATM_Treadwel...
Cowboys and corporations naturally collide: Ian Tyson
I think this background is why I've never been fully happy in Corporate America. The petty control -- where's your badge? -- even though I worked at the damn place for 10+ years is something I'll never understand. Petty beurceatric control to "help you" ... I miss the old days