Latest news with #grizzly
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
These Alaskans Stopped a Charging Grizzly at 5 Yards with Their 10mm Pistols
The smell of death gets your attention, especially when you're walking through thick alders and brush in grizzly bear country. That piercing odor usually means one thing: a bear kill is nearby. Bear defense is a popular topic, and many hunters have imagined scenarios where they may have to fend off an aggressive bear with their handgun. Undoubtedly, clearing their meticulously-oiled leather holster in the nick of time to perfectly place a single cast .44 Magnum slug squarely on the bear's head, sending him skidding to a final stop within spitting range of their chaw tobacco. Reality rarely lives up to romanticism, however, and surviving a real-life aggressive bear encounter has a lot more to do with basic, and sometimes mundane, principles. A Close Scrape On Saturday my good friend Brett TerBeek and his hunting partner Andy were scouting a remote river for promising spots to hunt moose in the upcoming September season. They left their boat to hike about a mile to a high point to look over the surrounding areas for good calling locations. As the pair was walking through thick alders and young birch trees, they caught a fleeting whiff of something dead. Brett and Andy remained alert, but kept walking forward. After proceeding about 100 yards, the foul stench hit them again. They froze and looked around. Sensing that they were near a kill, Andy drew his 10mm Glock G20, and Brett drew his own G20. Andy pivoted left, looking past Brett, and said, 'Bear, right there!' Brett told me that as Andy said that, he turned and saw the huge grizzly's head rise from the brush, only 10 yards away. The boar locked onto them and laid its ears back as it sidestepped the moose carcass he had been on. He came lunging straight through the brush toward both men. 'Andy fired the first shot,' says Brett, 'and I remember seeing a perfect sight picture in the center of the bear's mass as I squeezed the trigger.' Both Brett and Andy served as Green Berets for a decade before going to PA school together in the Army, and Brett credits his years of service using the 9mm Glock G19 for being able to fire rapid, controlled shots with the larger-but-similar 10mm Glock G20. 'This all happened so fast, it takes way longer to tell the story,' Brett says of the bear's charge. In the open at a full run, an adult Grizzly can cover 10 yards in a second or two. 'He was crashing through the brush directly at us and, afterward, branches were all broken and plowed over and we found at least two that our bullets struck. When he got to about five yards, he turned to his right to step into a more clear path towards us and we kept shooting. As he moved into that open lane, I knew I had at least one or two of the fifteen rounds left — I hadn't been counting — and I needed to save those until he got right on top of us.' Fortunately for the pair, the bear collapsed there, at 5 yards, and the adrenaline still pumped as the big bear's chest heaved slowly. After the intense barrage, all was silent except for the bruin's labored final breaths and the sliding and clicking of magazines as the pair checked to see how many cartridges remained. Over in an Instant 'It was all over in a matter of a few seconds,' Brett told me the following day, as we stood looking at the massive skull and hide. (In Alaska, when a grizzly or other animal is killed out-of-season in self-defense, the incident must be reported. Alaska's Wildlife Troopers met him at the boat launch to examine the bear and take the report. He was instructed to turn in the hide and skull the following day at the Department of Fish and Game, so I was lucky to get a look at it first.) 'If we had been using bear spray, I don't think we would have been able to stop the boar before he got to us,' Brett says. Additionally, the tight brush would have likely caused them to be incapacitated by the spray, too. It was truly a massive interior grizzly. Brett and I roughly measured the skull to be about 25 inches, length plus width, and the hide was close to 9 feet squared. I have killed eight interior grizzlies myself, and the largest — which tied for number six in Pope and Young at the time — measured 25 2/16 inches. Anything over 23 inches is a world-class bear, and it was significantly larger than my last grizzly, taken with a 6.5 CM. The Boring Basics of Bear Defense Both Brett and Andy were using the popular Glock G20, one of the most prevalent, and proven, backcountry defense pistols in recent years. They were shooting a mishmash of ammo, with Andy using Federal 200-grain Punch JHP ammo and Brett using a coffee-can mix of Buffalo Bore 180-grain JHP and hard-cast bullets. The two men fired eight shots apiece — 16 shots total — in the short exchange, hitting the bear multiple times. They didn't get an exact count because they spent the next few hours skinning the bear with a dull Leatherman and lugging the heavy hide and skull a mile back to the boat without a pack frame. Still, we were able to find one shot that hit a front paw. One shot hit the top of the bear's head, appearing to penetrate into the neck. Another shot hit the bear straight in the mouth and broke some front teeth. There were about 10 additional shots that hit the chest and ribs for a total of 13 rounds that struck the bear. What Really Matters for Bear Defense In any self-defense encounter with a bear, luck and circumstance certainly factor into the outcome. But as for factors within their control, Brett simply credits carrying a pistol he's familiar with — one that he can shoot well and has practiced with a lot. More importantly, he had that pistol at the ready on his chest, even when he wasn't expecting an encounter. He said that he'd even considered leaving it at the boat for this hike, but had brought it along just in case. Read Next: 'Being able to fire multiple quick, accurate shots is what stopped that bear,' he told me. In other words, he and his buddy stopped a charging grizzly thanks to their situational awareness, training, and reliance on shootable pistols that they wore at the ready. Solve the daily Crossword
CTV News
22-07-2025
- General
- CTV News
‘Really, really frightening': Grizzly encounter prompts bear warning in Kananaskis Country
A Calgary couple is glad to be unharmed after a close encounter with a grizzly, but the pair made it out with a message: always be prepared in nature. What was supposed to be a quick hike to celebrate their anniversary turned into a close encounter with a grizzly bear for one Calgary couple. A Saturday stroll for Howard Mah and Lori Arnason was quiet until the pair stopped to take photos and spotted the dangerous animal along the trail. It happened on July 19 on the trail to Troll Falls. 'We had been out and seen black bears (before), but never a grizzly and never that close to us, so we just thought, 'How do we handle this?'' said Arnason. The pair started slowly walking back down the trail, and Mah started taking a video of the bear as it followed the two. 'It got really large, and it showed its claws, and I felt like it was going to attack us,' said Arnason. 'So that was really, really frightening.' What was supposed to be a quick hike to celebrate their anniversary turned into a close encounter with a grizzly bear for one Calgary couple. What was supposed to be a quick hike to celebrate their anniversary turned into a close encounter with a grizzly bear for one Calgary couple. Mah admits the couple was not properly prepared—they thought it would be a trail full of people and hadn't planned the hike beforehand—and did not have bear spray. 'It was so frightening when he made the lunges, and you're just thinking, 'What do I do? What do I do?'' said Mah. 'So I put up both of my hands, made myself as large as possible, and just roared as loud as I possibly could.' That's when the bear finally left the trail and the couple made it back down to their vehicle to warn other hikers and wildlife officials. Alberta Parks has since issued a bear warning for the area around Troll Falls after a 'grizzly bear bluff charge.'
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
This grizzly followed a Calgary couple along a popular trail until they finally roared at it
Howard Mah and Lori Arnason had never seen a wild grizzly until Saturday. And if they ever see one again, they'll be sure to be carrying bear spray the next time. The Calgary couple had set out for a short hike to Troll Falls in Alberta's Kananaskis Country on July 19 to celebrate their wedding anniversary — one they won't soon forget. They expected the trail to be busy, as it often is, but were pleasantly surprised, at first, to find they had it pretty much all to themselves. The solitude suddenly turned scary, however, after Mah sent Arnason ahead on the trail so he could take a photo of her. "And as I was walking ahead, he said, 'Oh, Lori, no, stop," she recalled. Mah had spotted a grizzly bear descending through a clearing, just behind his wife, toward the trail. "And then as the bear walked down and hit the trail, I was hoping he would just continue on," he said. "But he instead came onto the trail, saw us and then started walking toward us." Grizzly followed, snorted, rose on hind legs The frightened couple did their best to remain calm. "We knew not to run," Mah said. "And so we just started backing up ... and then, because I was taking photos of Lori, I just happened to have my phone in my hand, so I just quickly switched it to video." He captured more than a minute of video of the bear slowly pacing toward them as they retreated. At one point in the footage, the bear rises on its hind legs, snorts and waves its front paws in the air as it accelerates briefly toward the couple, before resuming its plodding pace. Mah said the animal made that "aggressive move" a few times during the encounter. "To be honest, my life did actually flash before me," he said of how it felt, in the moment. He estimates the bear came within about 15 metres of them as they continued to walk backwards, wondering if it would ever stop following them. "When he didn't look like he was going to give up, that's when I thought, 'Well, I've heard to make yourself large,'" Mah said. "So I put up both my hands, made myself as large as possible, and just roared as long as I could." "And so when Howard did that, then I stood beside Howard and did the same thing," Arnason said. "And it worked!" The bear, they said, finally walked off the trail and left them alone. They decided to cancel the rest of their hike to Troll Falls, returning immediately to the parking lot instead. One of several recent encounters The couple warned other would-be hikers in the parking lot about the grizzly, and then immediately reported the encounter to Alberta Parks and provided conservation officers with the video. Alberta Parks issued a bear warning for Troll Falls, citing a "grizzly bear bluff charge." It's one of several similar incidents in recent weeks. A grizzly warning was also issued for the Bill Milne trail on July 8 due to a bluff charge. And the popular Rawson Lake and Sarrail Ridge routes were closed on July 11 after a grizzly bear with cubs charged a group of hikers. Bluff charges typically occur when a bear feels threatened or is caught by surprise, bear safety expert Kim Titchener told CBC News after those incidents. "If you aren't making noise … the problem now is that bear thinks that you were trying to sneak up on them, and that means that they're going to feel threatened," she said. Lessons for next time Mah and Arnason said they realized, in retrospect, they were being too quiet on the trail. "We were just enjoying nature and, yeah, we weren't talking a lot, or loudly," Arnason said. The couple also said they wouldn't be caught without bear spray again. They had figured the Troll Falls trail is usually so popular with hikers that the chances of a bear encounter were low, but realize now that's no reason not to come prepared. They hope sharing their story will help others stay safe in bear country, and avoid similar encounters. "To have it right on the path with you, and no one else around, and no way of defending yourself — you just feel so vulnerable," Arnason said. "I thought we could die. I was just shaking afterwards."
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
This grizzly followed a Calgary couple along a popular trail until they finally roared at it
Howard Mah and Lori Arnason had never seen a wild grizzly until Saturday. And if they ever see one again, they'll be sure to be carrying bear spray the next time. The Calgary couple had set out for a short hike to Troll Falls in Alberta's Kananaskis Country on July 19 to celebrate their wedding anniversary — one they won't soon forget. WATCH | Hikers cross paths with grizzly in Kananaskis: They expected the trail to be busy, as it often is, but were pleasantly surprised, at first, to find they had it pretty much all to themselves. The solitude suddenly turned scary, however, after Mah sent Arnason ahead on the trail so he could take a photo of her. "And as I was walking ahead, he said, 'Oh, Lori, no, stop," she recalled. Mah had spotted a grizzly bear descending through a clearing, just behind his wife, toward the trail. "And then as the bear walked down and hit the trail, I was hoping he would just continue on," he said. "But he instead came onto the trail, saw us and then started walking toward us." Grizzly followed, snorted, rose on hind legs The frightened couple did their best to remain calm. "We knew not to run," Mah said. "And so we just started backing up ... and then, because I was taking photos of Lori, I just happened to have my phone in my hand, so I just quickly switched it to video." He captured more than a minute of video of the bear slowly pacing toward them as they retreated. At one point in the footage, the bear rises on its hind legs, snorts and waves its front paws in the air as it accelerates briefly toward the couple, before resuming its plodding pace. Mah said the animal made that "aggressive move" a few times during the encounter. "To be honest, my life did actually flash before me," he said of how it felt, in the moment. He estimates the bear came within about 15 metres of them as they continued to walk backwards, wondering if it would ever stop following them. "When he didn't look like he was going to give up, that's when I thought, 'Well, I've heard to make yourself large,'" Mah said. "So I put up both my hands, made myself as large as possible, and just roared as long as I could." "And so when Howard did that, then I stood beside Howard and did the same thing," Arnason said. "And it worked!" The bear, they said, finally walked off the trail and left them alone. They decided to cancel the rest of their hike to Troll Falls, returning immediately to the parking lot instead. One of several recent encounters The couple warned other would-be hikers in the parking lot about the grizzly, and then immediately reported the encounter to Alberta Parks and provided conservation officers with the video. Alberta Parks issued a bear warning for Troll Falls, citing a "grizzly bear bluff charge." It's one of several similar incidents in recent weeks. A grizzly warning was also issued for the Bill Milne trail on July 8 due to a bluff charge. And the popular Rawson Lake and Sarrail Ridge routes were closed on July 11 after a grizzly bear with cubs charged a group of hikers. Bluff charges typically occur when a bear feels threatened or is caught by surprise, bear safety expert Kim Titchener told CBC News after those incidents. "If you aren't making noise … the problem now is that bear thinks that you were trying to sneak up on them, and that means that they're going to feel threatened," she said. Lessons for next time Mah and Arnason said they realized, in retrospect, they were being too quiet on the trail. "We were just enjoying nature and, yeah, we weren't talking a lot, or loudly," Arnason said. The couple also said they wouldn't be caught without bear spray again. They had figured the Troll Falls trail is usually so popular with hikers that the chances of a bear encounter were low, but realize now that's no reason not to come prepared. They hope sharing their story will help others stay safe in bear country, and avoid similar encounters. "To have it right on the path with you, and no one else around, and no way of defending yourself — you just feel so vulnerable," Arnason said. "I thought we could die. I was just shaking afterwards."
CBC
20-07-2025
- General
- CBC
This grizzly followed a Calgary couple along a popular trail until they finally roared at it
Social Sharing Howard Mah and Lori Arnason had never seen a wild grizzly until Saturday. And if they ever see one again, they'll be sure to be carrying bear spray the next time. The Calgary couple had set out for a short hike to Troll Falls in Alberta's Kananaskis Country on July 19 to celebrate their wedding anniversary — one they won't soon forget. They expected the trail to be busy, as it often is, but were pleasantly surprised, at first, to find they had it pretty much all to themselves. The solitude suddenly turned scary, however, after Mah sent Arnason ahead on the trail so he could take a photo of her. "And as I was walking ahead, he said, 'Oh, Lori, no, stop," she recalled. Mah had spotted a grizzly bear descending through a clearing, just behind his wife, toward the trail. "And then as the bear walked down and hit the trail, I was hoping he would just continue on," he said. "But he instead came onto the trail, saw us and then started walking toward us." Grizzly followed, snorted, rose on hind legs The frightened couple did their best to remain calm. "We knew not to run," Mah said. "And so we just started backing up ... and then, because I was taking photos of Lori, I just happened to have my phone in my hand, so I just quickly switched it to video." He captured more than a minute of video of the bear slowly pacing toward them as they retreated. At one point in the footage, the bear rises on its hind legs, snorts and waves its front paws in the air as it accelerates briefly toward the couple, before resuming its plodding pace. Grizzly encounter on Troll Falls trail in Kananaskis 43 minutes ago This grizzly bear followed Howard Mah and Lori Arnason along the Troll Falls trail in Alberta's Kananaskis Country on July 19, until the couple finally roared at it and the animal fled. Mah said the animal made that "aggressive move" a few times during the encounter. "To be honest, my life did actually flash before me," he said of how it felt, in the moment. He estimates the bear came within about 15 metres of them as they continued to walk backwards, wondering if it would ever stop following them. "When he didn't look like he was going to give up, that's when I thought, 'Well, I've heard to make yourself large,'" Mah said. "So I put up both my hands, made myself as large as possible, and just roared as long as I could." "And so when Howard did that, then I stood beside Howard and did the same thing," Arnason said. "And it worked!" The bear, they said, finally walked off the trail and left them alone. They decided to cancel the rest of their hike to Troll Falls, returning immediately to the parking lot instead. One of several recent encounters The couple warned other would-be hikers in the parking lot about the grizzly, and then immediately reported the encounter to Alberta Parks and provided conservation officers with the video. Alberta Parks issued a bear warning for Troll Falls, citing a "grizzly bear bluff charge." It's one of several similar incidents in recent weeks. A grizzly warning was also issued for the Bill Milne trail on July 8 due to a bluff charge. And the popular Rawson Lake and Sarrail Ridge routes were closed on July 11 after a grizzly bear with cubs charged a group of hikers. Bluff charges typically occur when a bear feels threatened or is caught by surprise, bear safety expert Kim Titchener told CBC News after those incidents. "If you aren't making noise … the problem now is that bear thinks that you were trying to sneak up on them, and that means that they're going to feel threatened," she said. Lessons for next time Mah and Arnason said they realized, in retrospect, they were being too quiet on the trail. "We were just enjoying nature and, yeah, we weren't talking a lot, or loudly," Arnason said. The couple also said they wouldn't be caught without bear spray again. They had figured the Troll Falls trail is usually so popular with hikers that the chances of a bear encounter were low, but realize now that's no reason not to come prepared. They hope sharing their story will help others stay safe in bear country, and avoid similar encounters. "To have it right on the path with you, and no one else around, and no way of defending yourself — you just feel so vulnerable," Arnason said.
