Another gun question?

[varmint]

the first time you'll be aware of a cougar attack is when it's knocked you off your horse, and has you pinned to the ground. i would probably want a snub nosed .38.

but a big .44 revolver is the best choice for all around. we could get into a big discussion over ammo. i've listened to guys go on for hours over wether ball or hollowpoint is best for stopping a bear.

RPKSEQ, where did you see the alaska bear attack stats. i'd be interested in reading them.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by varmint

the first time you'll be aware of a cougar attack is when it's knocked you off your horse, and has you pinned to the ground. i would probably want a snub nosed .38.

but a big .44 revolver is the best choice for all around. we could get into a big discussion over ammo. i've listened to guys go on for hours over wether ball or hollowpoint is best for stopping a bear.

RPKSEQ, where did you see the alaska bear attack stats. i'd be interested in reading them.

On a Alaska State website. I will attempt to find it again for you.

[varmint]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/bears/story/560712.html



Unusual hunting ground even for Alaska
Bureaucratic crack is bear's undoing
By CRAIG MEDRED
cmedred@adn.com
Published: October 19th, 2008 01:35 AM
Last Modified: October 19th, 2008 10:56 AM
Not often does a man open the back door of his home, poke out the barrel of his rifle and shoot a monster-size grizzly in Alaska.

Story tools
Comments (90)
Recommend (10)
E-mail a friend
Print
Digg this
Seed Newsvine
Send link via AIM

Yahoo! Buzz
Font size : A | A | A
Maybe the door of a cabin along some remote bay on Kodiak Island, where 1,000-pound bears are expected to roam, but certainly not the door of a home in an Anchorage suburb.

Yet this is exactly what Chugiak resident Kurt Sorensen did.

Twenty-two feet from his home, he shot a grizzly that measured about 8 feet from nose to tail, Sorensen said. Standing on its hind legs, it would have towered around 10 feet.

Alaska Department Fish and Game biologist Sean Farley, who has weighed a lot of grizzly bears over the years, estimated the dead bear's weight to be at least 1,000 pounds -- about the size of three big, burly NFL linemen.

"I don't know if it's a record-book bear,'' area wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott said, "but it's a huge bear. It would have been a big bear on Kodiak.''

Kodiak and the nearby Alaska Peninsula are home to the biggest brown/grizzly bears in North America. Bears of Kodiak size are sometimes seen in the Anchorage area -- Farley radio-collared one above Eagle River several years ago -- but they are rare.

To shoot such a bear, legally, in one's backyard is unheard of. Fish and Game biologists have never encountered a hunt like this before, a hunt in which a man used his home as a blind from which to shoot a bear he let come almost within spitting distance.

At that range, all it took was one shot from a powerful, .45-70-caliber rifle to put the bear down.

"For a brief second, he gave me that perfect shot,'' said Sorensen, an experienced hunter. "So I shot him in the first vertebrae of the neck. He went down and never moved. I've never seen an animal die so immediately.''

A .45-70 rifles pushes a bullet almost as big around as your thumb. When a soft-point bullet like that hits bone at a distance of 20 feet, it flattens with the impact of a giant fist.

"I'm surprised it didn't decapitate the bear,'' Sinnott said.

Sorensen said he wanted a shot that would ensure the bear couldn't run off into a neighbor's yard.

"I think he did the responsible thing,'' Sinnott added.

ADVERTISEMENT
Everyone agrees having a wounded grizzly running around in Chugiak, or any other Anchorage suburb, would be a bad thing. The city has already endured a summer of scary bear encounters. Two people were badly mauled by healthy grizzlies, something that had never before happened here.

And city officials are now contemplating what steps might be taken to mitigate future bear problems in Anchorage. Changing state hunting rules to allow some bear hunting in and around the city has been suggested. Amid this discussion, hardly anyone noticed that there is an area where such hunting is already legal.

Sorensen's home just happens to sit in the middle of it.

He lives on a two-acre lot along a road that dead ends near upper Peters Creeks about 1,200 feet above Chugiak. To the east is Chugach State Park, where there is now a small, limited, drawing-permit hunt for grizzly bears. To the west is the Fort Richardson Military Reservation and Birchwood Management Area, where grizzly hunting is banned -- as it is to the north in the Eklutna Management Area and to the south in the Eagle River Management area.

Between these closed areas, runs a thin strip of land in state Game Management Unit 14C that was never closed to grizzly hunting. State wildlife regulations, which reference the hundreds of thousands of acres closed to hunting in and around Anchorage and its suburbs, catalog this area as part of the "remainder of Unit 14C."

In the "remainder of Unit 14C,'' grizzly hunting is open from Sept. 1 to May 31 with a limit of one bear every four years. Most of the "remainder of Unit 14C" is far from civilization near Lake George and the Knik Glacier over the mountains to the east. That is a remote corner of land beyond the wilderness of Chugach State Park far from Anchorage. Every few years, Sinnott said, a grizzly is shot there.

Never before had the biologist heard of a grizzly shot in the thin finger of land along Knik Arm that also falls in the "remainder of Unit 14C.''

"I knew I was in a very unique area,'' Sorensen said

"It's one of these bureaucratic cracks,'' Sinnott said.

Over the years, the biologist said, the Birchwood Management Area was created between the obvious demarcation points of the Glenn Highway and Knik Arm. Then came the creation of Chugach State Park, which was another management area. Left between was that thin, remnant strip of Unit 14C.

Almost all of the land in the strip is privately owned, with the exception of a couple, small municipal parks closed to the discharge of firearms.

"An occasional moose (is) shot on private property in there,'' Sinnott said, "(but) I can't remember ever having a brown bear shot.''

Bears, though, are regular visitors. Farley has documented plenty of radio-collared grizzlies moving along Peters Creek. In the 19 years Sorensen has lived in the area since moving north from Colorado, he has seen many bears.

"I see a lot of black bears around here, but it's rare for me to see a grizzly,'' Sorensen said.

He never before shot any either.

Then, a couple years ago, a massive grizzly started making occasional visits to Sorensen's property, and he started thinking about the bear.

"He was enormous,'' Sorensen said, "and I always said I wanted one big grizzly bear. I passed up quite a few over the years. This one was a monster.''

Sorensen had shot black bears back in Colorado, but only one bear -- another black bear -- in Alaska. That was a large, berry-eating bear from the Mulchatna River drainage the hunter killed for food.

"That was one tender and delicious bear," Sorensen said. "I rendered the fat, and it made the most amazing cinnamon rolls.''

That was years back. Sorensen hadn't shot a bear since, until he started thinking about killing this grizzly. So it might live on forever as a trophy in his home.

"He'd been coming around every once in a while, very, very briefly," Sorensen said. "Then, this fall, he came around five or six times.''

Or at least there were five or six occasions on which Sorensen saw the bear. There were many nights when the family dogs started barking, Sorensen said. He suspects that on some of those nights, the bear was in the area.

"He was very sly, very secretive,'' the man said, though by no means timid.

"He wasn't aggressive,'' Sorensen said, "but I didn't challenge him either.''

Farley estimates the bear was 15 to 18 years old. The only way bears survive to that age, he added, is if they avoid people. Aggressive bears in the Anchorage area tend to get shot in defense of life and property or killed by authorities. The defense of life and property law allows anyone to kill a bear to protect him or herself, but the shooter must then skin the bear and turn the hide and skull over to the state. That arduous requirement makes most people avoid so-called DLP shootings at all costs.

As someone who shot a bear in a legal hunt, however, Sorensen is entitled to keep the hide and have it mounted, which he intends to do. He started thinking about that possibility this summer.

When the bear season opened Sept. 1, he was ready with a bear hunting tag. Several times over the course of the month, Sorensen said, he saw this big, old bear moving along or through his yard. Always, though, it was in the bad light of early morning or oncoming night.

"Every time he came around, I had a shot,'' Sorensen said, but the hunter wanted a perfect shot -- a shot at an ideal angle and from such close range that the bear would die instantly.

The shot came "right at dark'' on the evening of Sept. 26.

"I was right at the back door,'' Sorensen said.

The bear was those 22 feet away in the yard, and in a blink of an eye, the hunt was over.

"For ease and convenience,'' Sorensen said, this was the perfect hunt. But as a man who knows the sweat and energy normally required for an Alaska hunt, he felt a touch of guilt.

"I felt a little badly about it actually,'' Sorensen said.

So along with keeping the bear's hide for a trophy, he tried to eat it, though the meat of grizzly bears tends to be so rancid that even most aboriginal inhabitants of Alaska avoided eating the animals.

"He was incredibly fat,'' Sorensen said. "He didn't smell too bad. Not pleasant, but OK. I tried to eat him. I always said I'd try.''

The taste was awful. He couldn't do it.

He has no plans to shoot another grizzly.

[charleskieffner]

Originally Posted by RWebb

well you morons do whatever baloney you want -- have a friend in a tree to take some pics and maybe I can use them next time I teach mammalogy

dear mr webb(bear-ologist), go to garrettcartridges.com and please take a look at COASTAL GRIZZLIES TAKEN(alaska-do they get any bigger?) w/a .44 mag, be it smith/wesson or a ruger.


after .44 mag hotloads ya got .454, .460, .480, and .500

[Superman]

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

If I recall correctly, Alaska has a state mandate to investigate all bear attacks. The last time I checked, no successful self defense against a Grizzly or Brown Bear has been recorded. True Brown Bears (not brown colored Black Bears) in attack mode are difficult to stop. Giving it a deadly wound that takes affect after the bear mauling you is not optimum!

Alaska may have a mandate to investigate all bear attacks, but that would be the only true fact in these remarks. Grizzlies and Brown Bears get killed. A "brown bear" and a "black bear" are the same thing. There are different kinds, such as the COLOSSAL Kodiak bears. In my part of the world, brown bears are much smaller than that. Some are black. Most are cinnamon. Grizzlies are pretty darned big and, as we know, they are not gentle, peaceful bears. But the really BIG ones are those Kodiak bears. HUGE. I'm not sure if they are ever black. If so, then there are multiple colors of the same bear. Same with their smaller cousins here, further South. Some are brown, a few are black, they are the same bear.

[9dreizig]

Originally Posted by Superman

Alaska may have a mandate to investigate all bear attacks, but that would be the only true fact in these remarks. Grizzlies and Brown Bears get killed. A "brown bear" and a "black bear" are the same thing. There are different kinds, such as the COLOSSAL Kodiak bears. In my part of the world, brown bears are much smaller than that. Some are black. Most are cinnamon. Grizzlies are pretty darned big and, as we know, they are not gentle, peaceful bears. But the really BIG ones are those Kodiak bears. HUGE. I'm not sure if they are ever black. If so, then there are multiple colors of the same bear. Same with their smaller cousins here, further South. Some are brown, a few are black, they are the same bear.

Actually this in not correct Grizzly bears and Black bears are the two seperate species.. When one refers to a "Brown Bear" they are referring to a coastal Grizzly which gets larger , typically as big as a Kodiak ( which again is just an very large grizzly). Even though Kodiaks are of the largest across the water on the alaskan penisula they get as large if not larger.. Skull measurment on Kodiak bears tends to be a bit larger however
While Black bears can and do come in a variety of colors black, brown, even a bluish white in the polar variety.. they are not refered to as "brown bears).

[varmint]

A "brown bear" and a "black bear" are the same thing.



i think there must be some huge difference in terminology between washington and alaska.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

A brown bear and a black bear are most definitely NOT the same thing. 9dreizig sums it up pretty well. "Brown" is normally a grizzly or some variant thereof and "black" are the much smaller, more common bears that still roam around the Sierra Nevada of California (it's interesting to note that although the grizzly is a symbol of CA and is on the state flag, grizzly bears haven't existed in CA in almost 100 years because people hunted them to extinction here).

[Jeff Higgins]

Grizzlies need to be re-introduced into California as soon as possible, and in as near as possible to their previous numbers. That would fix a lot of things down there...

[Porsche-O-Phile]

You're right about that!

They can start with downtown San Fran. I'd pay for a front row seat to that one.

[curlesw]

Originally Posted by Grog

About a week ago I came home from work and chased a bear down the driveway with the 944, the car gripped the corners (gravel drive), but the bear’s back end was a bit loose.

Not every day you read something like this, actually a first...that's funny!

Wayne C.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by Superman

Alaska may have a mandate to investigate all bear attacks, but that would be the only true fact in these remarks. Grizzlies and Brown Bears get killed. A "brown bear" and a "black bear" are the same thing. There are different kinds, such as the COLOSSAL Kodiak bears. In my part of the world, brown bears are much smaller than that. Some are black. Most are cinnamon. Grizzlies are pretty darned big and, as we know, they are not gentle, peaceful bears. But the really BIG ones are those Kodiak bears. HUGE. I'm not sure if they are ever black. If so, then there are multiple colors of the same bear. Same with their smaller cousins here, further South. Some are brown, a few are black, they are the same bear.

I love it when people without specialist knowledge state what is or isn't true.

First, let us clear up the bit about bears in NA.

There are three species with a couple of subspecies. The common names are often local and have little to do with the actual genetic diffireniated species that consists of: Brown Bear (Ursus arctos), the Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), also known as the Silvertip Bear, is a subspecies of that lives in the uplands of western North America, the American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) is the most common bear species native to North America, it lives throughout much of the continent,and the Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) native to the Arctic Seas and Arctic Circle regions.

Black bears can come in a bewildering variety of shades and hues. From white (albino) to dappled, to brown (in every shade), to cinnimon, very gray and into pure black. All are the same species regardless of shade.

Brown bears can also show a range of colors although with less variation than Black Bears. There is also a Brown and Polar Bear hybrid that has been recently identified.

Although Black Bears can grow quite large, they are much less agressive than Brown Bears and are not built nearly as strong and tough. Black Bears are skilled tree climbers.

Brown Bears are famous for their agressiveness and power. They typically grow much larger than Black Bears and cannot climb trees. There is an enormous difference in self defense between the two.

Please note that when we speak of self defense against a Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) this distinction between hunting and self defense is critical. Elephants have been successfully hunted with a .22 long rifle cartridge. Brown bears have been successfully hunted with a .44 Magnum. Both are not optimum for self defense against an elephant or a Brown Bear. I do not have the time to look up the latest stats from Alaska, but last time I checked no successful self defense has been accomplished with a .44 Magnum in Alsaka against a Brown Bear.

Now you may understand why we should use sharply defines terms like scientific names foe animals and keeping track of subject matter (hunting vs. self defense).
Knowledge is powerful. Uninformed opinion is just so much static.