• Case@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 hours ago

    Worked in Yellowstone for a summer.

    Spent some time with the rangers. They got all sorts of questions…

    Like which handgun caliber would be best to defend oneself from a bear.

    Essentially, the ranger broke it down stating there was a weakness in the skull about the size of a bullet that you had to hit directly to have a chance of dropping a bear with a handgun. While its coming at you and pissed/hungry.

    So essentially, you’ve just pissed off the bear before it gets it claws on you.

    Well placed slugs from shotguns, rifle rounds, and preferably (according to the ranger in question) a tranquilizer to re-home the bear away from people. That being said, the bears are tracked to an extent and bears who show repeated behavior endangering themselves/tourists tend to be exterminated, sadly.

    Hand to claw combat? Human is going down.

    This is why in the past, when bears were hunted, they were hunted in their dens during hibernation - at the end of spears to keep that hungry bear as far away as possible from your soft easily rent flesh.

  • Oniononon@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    51
    ·
    16 hours ago

    They may kill SEAL with a slap but how many polar bear slaps does it take to kill members of other special forces?

  • Donebrach@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    15 hours ago

    Fighting bears isn’t that common of an encounter. I’d be more worried about deer and coyotes or even a single cougar than the off chance of encountering a bear. They will definitely fuck you up but it’s not like they are starting their day to be like “Imma go murder a human” in the same way other urban-adjacent animals are—I think they just wanna get that sweet sweet pick-a-nic basket.

    dies from turkey assault

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Bear is white, say good night, and tuck it in and tell it a story. Once the bear has fallen asleep snuggle up to it, so it has a fresh morning snack.

    • lobut@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      7 hours ago

      I remember somewhere they were saying you should remove your clothes (slowly piece by piece) with a polar bear. The bear will get distracted and start sniffing your clothes.

      I think it was a QI episode and then David Mitchell said something like that Polar Bear being happier in the fact that the human would be better to eat this time because it didn’t have a wrapper.

      • The Giant Korean@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        7 hours ago

        This works because polar bears are super horny. Its desire to rend you limb from limb will be replaced by overwhelming lust. Of course then you’ve got a completely different issue to deal with, but at least you might not die.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        I think removing your clothes is just so the bear doesn’t choke to death on your Nikes.

    • s_s@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      19 hours ago

      Also.

      Some black bears are brown.

      Some brown bears are black.

      Good luck everyone.

  • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    122
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Fun fact: Grizzlies and Polar Bears are the same species according to the Biological Species Concept.

    Meaning they interbreed in the wild (somewhat rare), and produce viable offspring that can have babies as well.

    We’re actually noticing this happening more and more with climate change. As Grizzly populations move further and further north, they’re encountering polar bears more often and are more likely to mate. Some scientists actually think within the next couple centuries due to arctic sea ice pretty much disappearing polar bears will either go extinct, or interbreed with grizzlies so much that there isn’t a “pure” polar bear left. Most likely a mix of both.

    • xwolpertinger@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      11 hours ago

      Fun fact: Grizzlies and Polar Bears are the same species according to the Biological Species Concept.

      Calling it that gives it too much credit, it is something thought up in the 17th/18th century without any concept of genetics and evolution.

      Which might explain why it breaks down almost instantly under any amount of scrutiny.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 hour ago

        It’s a category. All lines are arbitrary to a degree and “interbreeds and produces viable offspring” is not exceedingly arbitrary. You can have arguments around populations which could and would interbreed if they weren’t geographically distinct, you can argue about whether offspring needs to be viable no matter which way around the sexes of the parents are, or how large the percentage of viable offspring needs to be, but in the end, yep it makes sense to have a distinction somewhere around that bunch of criteria.

        House cats and European wild cats are considered distinct species not because they’re genetically incompatible, but because they don’t interbreed to any significant degree – too many behavioural differences, and we’re not speaking about culture, here. So even if they could intermingle in theory in practice they don’t, so they stay separate, so they’re different species.

        It’s kind of… a behavioural view on the genome? If you have a better idea, field it, there has to be some dividing line because taxa for the taxonomy god.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      22 hours ago

      Biologists wouldn’t say they’re the same species, because biologists are aware of interspecies hybrids and the species problem.

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        9 hours ago

        Close enough that we probably helped bred them out of existence. Neanderthal genetic markers show up with some regularity in certain modern human populations.

        Edit to add: While humans didn’t breed them out of existence, we certainly did intermix with them. And that does help to maintain their existence yet today.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      23 hours ago

      There are tons and tons and tons of species that can do this. It’s not clear to me what the prevailing species concept is nowadays, if we’re even still following one.

    • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      22 hours ago

      In the near future, Polar Bears as a separate species will likely disappear, and we’ll have all hybrids.

    • Barbecue Cowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      6 hours ago

      Bear doesn’t view something our size as even remotely a threat. We’re assuming the bear isn’t hungry and just not that interested.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      10 hours ago

      In that kind of cold, body mass matters for keeping warm. You need to be bigger to survive and they aren’t really over powered for their environment.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    19 hours ago

    Your survival time would depend on how far apart you and the bear are, how’s fast you can run, and how angry or hungry the bear is.