Bear Attacks Hunter & Guide Sep '18 Story

[Mike7]

With this investigation completed and the entire very sad story told now, this is a poignant reminder of how fast things can go south in grizzly country and a warning for me anyway about the importance of taking precautions around kill sites.

One thing that struck me while reading this though was the commentary from officials about how rare this type of bear behavior is, when it would seem to be more accurate to maybe say how rare this bear behavior is combined with the bear killing a person...because after all, aren't officials always warning hunters about the number of deadly interactions which lead to bear deaths , especially around kill sites?(http://www.mtpr.org/post/51-grizzly-mortalities-deadliest-year-record-montana-bears)


Case closed in fatal griz attack | Environmental | jhnewsandguide.com
https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/article_c17c97cb-c2f0-5476-aa08-17301f75343d.html

 

[JWP58]

That was tough to read.

 

[JohnnyB]

Sad indeed, Thank goodness OSHA is involved. No doubt they’ll have some meaningful insight to add.

 

[Blacktail_Packer]

Sad indeed, Thank goodness OSHA is involved. No doubt they’ll have some meaningful insight to add.

Sad story, though I see where someone died while doing there job I think at the point where Mother Nature is involved OSHA needs to just except that whatever they think they are about to say doesn't need to be said.

 

[Blinginpse]

Not sure I'd ran off from that guide. I'd stayed there weather I died with him or not I'd not be able to look myself in the mirror knowing I didn't try to save his life.

 

[Beendare]

Yeah, and lessons learned;

Vigilance and preparedness are the keys

..

..

 

[PNWGATOR]

Really horrible.

I look at the pic and the diagram and then think about the grizzly habitat we hunt in the Idaho Panhandle.

Preparedness and vigilance are good take aways from this horrible event.

 

[mntnguide]

There is still a lot of "should have, could have etc" talk about this. Long story short, Mark saved that hunters life. Its easy to sit behind a keyboard and say what should have happened, but its different when you have a grizzly in attack mode feet from you. I know this country very well and have spent countless days and nights in it. The grizzly population is robust and everywhere. . In regards to the glock not having 1 in the chamber, Never in all my years of horseback hunting grizzly country, have I carried a loaded round in my sidearm. You never know what will happen with horses, and having a loaded sidearm is not something anyone i know carries while in the saddle.
Mark knew what he was doing, and could not have predicted a Sow and cub coming out of trees at full charge, after they had already arrived at the carcass and not seen any signs of grizzlies. Ive been in the same scenario, thick trees recoving an elk from the night before, and having a grizzly come out of the trees at 20 feet downhill of me, the only difference was between my mules and clients, the bear decided to run away and not at me. Grizzlies are unpredictable, and this scenario was as terrible as it could be. The community lost a very good man and business owner. Remember in grizzly country, you always think it wont happen to you, but grizzlies dont care what you think and being bear aware at all times is the best you can do.

 

[sandhillhunter]

Sad indeed, Thank goodness OSHA is involved. No doubt they’ll have some meaningful insight to add.

Seriously? Thank goodness OSHA is involved?

What exactly would you expect them to do to make an inherently risky job (guiding elk hunters in grizzly country) safer other than putting up unrealistic barriers?


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[sneaky]

I wouldn't consider the bear spray to have worked if fatal injuries had already occurred. To me, for the bear spray to be considered effectively employed it would mean survival. What's to say the bear stopped because it no longer deemed him a threat? They seem to have bent that in a way to support their own thoughts on bear spray vs weapons.

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[sneaky]

That article also reinforces my thoughts that the client, Chubon, is a turd. Hell, he bailed completely out of the state before they even recovered the guide's body. That's despicable.

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[T28w]

Seriously? Thank goodness OSHA is involved?

What exactly would you expect them to do to make an inherently risky job (guiding elk hunters in grizzly country) safer other than putting up unrealistic barriers?


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Pretty sure it was sarcasm.

 

[Rich M]

I wouldn't rush to judgement on the dude who ran off. No sense in dying if you are unable to do anything. He got attacked too - just didn't get killed cause he was probably sitting on a log watching the guide cut up the elk. He does get to try and sleep without seeing the scene unfold in front of his eyes every night - and he still cannot help. That's gotta be brutal.

It befuddles me that the 10mm wasn't "locked & loaded" and that the guide didn't go over how to use it with the client - and that the client was allowed to ditch his can of "bear off".

This brings up a good point on the guns folks choose - might have been a diff story if it was a .44 revolver. Non-gun guy could still point and pull with that one.

Then we get this BS from the biologists - bears usually don't attack - this is weird. Really? I've seen enough videos where the bear sees hunters, they charge. I'm deaf so no bear country hunting for me - ever.

OSHA will straighten this out! LOL! Use your scaffolding harness and watch out for that ladder, lock out tag out guys! Seriously - it will make a lousy situation even worse if they fine the outfitter - he didn't do anything wrong. Guide was complacent... and sadly it cost him his life.

 

[sandhillhunter]

Pretty sure it was sarcasm.

I would think so, but thought I’d ask anyways.

So sorry for the loss of life of the guide and the way it all went down with the hunter.

I heard Todd Orr and a couple of other bear attack experts talking about his bear attacks and how marine flares are thought to be a better deterrent than bear spray.

I wonder how that would have worked in this situation (especially if the hunter had been carrying one and was shown how to use it before the hunt).


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[sneaky]

I wouldn't rush to judgement on the dude who ran off. No sense in dying if you are unable to do anything. He got attacked too - just didn't get killed cause he was probably sitting on a log watching the guide cut up the elk. He does get to try and sleep without seeing the scene unfold in front of his eyes every night - and he still cannot help. That's gotta be brutal.

It befuddles me that the 10mm wasn't "locked & loaded" and that the guide didn't go over how to use it with the client - and that the client was allowed to ditch his can of "bear off".

This brings up a good point on the guns folks choose - might have been a diff story if it was a .44 revolver. Non-gun guy could still point and pull with that one.

Then we get this BS from the biologists - bears usually don't attack - this is weird. Really? I've seen enough videos where the bear sees hunters, they charge. I'm deaf so no bear country hunting for me - ever.

OSHA will straighten this out! LOL! Use your scaffolding harness and watch out for that ladder, lock out tag out guys! Seriously - it will make a lousy situation even worse if they fine the outfitter - he didn't do anything wrong. Guide was complacent... and sadly it cost him his life.

We most certainly didn't rush to judgment on the client, it's right there in black and white months later. He ran to save his own ass, got a helicopter ride off the mountain, then ran with his tail between his legs back to Florida before the guide's body was even stiff. He's a POS , and he has to live with his actions the rest of his days. I hope they haunt him, because he did NOTHING right.

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[Rich M]

What I'm really saying is it aint the guy's fault the bear ate the guide. Fellow was not trained to handle this, the guide was. If fellow was supposed to be ready to fight bears, he would have had his own gun and would have been wearing bear spray. What else could have been done? A mandatory 4-hour safety class on fighting a bear upon arrival at the lodge? Live-fire included? In retrospect, That might have been handy.

In my line of work we have what is called confined-space entry - for going inside tanks, pipes, and such - the main danger is "swamp gas". It requires 3 guys - 1 goes in, 1 watches, 1 is there to rescue. If guy the guy who goes in first drops/passes out/etc, the watcher does not enter, he calls for the rescue guy. Because if the watcher were to rush in, he'd die too and no-one would know to go rescue them. If you were in a confined space and went down, I'm not gonna die to get you out cause that solves nothing - I can do more by calling for help than I can dying from the gas that killed you.

I'm sure military has similar rules - if Johnny gets popped by a sniper and is flopping around in the middle of the road, there are procedures to be followed before anyone else exposes themselves trying to get Johnny who is now "bait". You gotta know what the rules are before you get Johnny, or you get shot too.

At the end of the day, the client had no legal or moral obligation to the guide. He was ill-prepared to do anything, tried to help and when he saw he could do nothing, he chose to go home to his family. I just can't fault him for that.

 

[mntnguide]

What I'm really saying is it aint the guy's fault the bear ate the guide. Fellow was not trained to handle this, the guide was. If fellow was supposed to be ready to fight bears, he would have had his own gun and would have been wearing bear spray. What else could have been done? A mandatory 4-hour safety class on fighting a bear upon arrival at the lodge? Live-fire included? In retrospect, That might have been handy.

In my line of work we have what is called confined-space entry - for going inside tanks, pipes, and such - the main danger is "swamp gas". It requires 3 guys - 1 goes in, 1 watches, 1 is there to rescue. If guy the guy who goes in first drops/passes out/etc, the watcher does not enter, he calls for the rescue guy. Because if the watcher were to rush in, he'd die too and no-one would know to go rescue them. If you were in a confined space and went down, I'm not gonna die to get you out cause that solves nothing - I can do more by calling for help than I can dying from the gas that killed you.

I'm sure military has similar rules - if Johnny gets popped by a sniper and is flopping around in the middle of the road, there are procedures to be followed before anyone else exposes themselves trying to get Johnny who is now "bait". You gotta know what the rules are before you get Johnny, or you get shot too.

At the end of the day, the client had no legal or moral obligation to the guide. He was ill-prepared to do anything, tried to help and when he saw he could do nothing, he chose to go home to his family. I just can't fault him for that.

Do you actually think a hunting guide goes to grizzly attack school!? He is the same person as the client he was guiding, except of his knowledge of the country and how to elk hunt. That client booked a hunt in GRIZZLY country. HE knew what he was getting into and what possibilities were there. I will not go into much more on this issue, but I dont care who you are, or where you are from, it takes a certain type of person to run, then get on a horse and keep running, completely away from a dying man.

 

[Firehole Hunter]

My thought is why only a guide and hunter going after a possible downed elk in grizzly country with a high densty of grizzly the following day when a grizzly could be looking for that stink of a dead elk. OSHA may frown on that one-on-one guide/hunter scenario in the future when their report comes out.

 

[Billinsd]

Pretty sure it was sarcasm.

It would have to be. What would OSHA do? Probably fine the outfitter into bancruptsy and then some. I'd have thought that the President's nurtured the hell out of OSHA and for good reason.

 

[Fatcamp]

Long list of stuff in that article makes Florida man sound like a dipshit. I certainly won't call him a coward, asshole sure.

In regard to the round in the chamber argument, there are plenty of safe ways to carry a Glock with a round in the chamber. High quality retention holsters are used by military and law enforcement around the world to do so. Not judging this man in any way, just sharing a fact.