Bear Attack

Mark of the Grizzly: True Stories of Recent Bear Attacks and the Hard Lessons Learned
$14.95
A must read if you spend any time at all in the Rock Mountains hiking around.

Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (revised edition)
$16.95
When I first read this book I knew next to nothing about bears. This book scared the scat out of me. Now, twenty years later I see this book as an important landmark in bear information. Herrero gathered all the available information in the form of research, bear encounters and work with bears when he wrote this book in 1985. Since then, more has been learned about bears but not as much as you would hope for. This book is still valuable and useful and probably will be for many years. The author tempers the bear attack stories by putting them in perspective and narrating what mistakes, if any, were made by the humans. Now that I have been fortunate enough to spend much more time than the average person with bears, I feel that it is time for some major research on the animal again. There are questions that haven't been answered. We have focused on the rare instance where a bear is unreasonable . . sort of like if someone who was studying humans only studied our serial killers. Although some of the stuff coming out of the years the Craighead brothers studied bears is still very solid, I have questions I don't know if we will ever answer about some of the historical attacks. . like why is everyone so sure that the night of the grizzlies in when two young women were killed in 1967 in Glacier National Park were killed by two different bears? After carefully reading everything I could find on the subject and then looking at a topo map carefully, I believe it is possible that one crazed bear could have done it. . if that were the case, would what we think we know about bears change? For forty years now women have been terrified to camp in bear country at the wrong time of month. . what if a bear's smelling ability is so good they can smell through our skin? What kind of a difference would that make in our relationship to them? What if most bears are nothing like the rare (statistics in the book support this) bear which kills? What if there is something that humans do that we haven't discovered yet (besides shooting bears on sight) that pisses them off that we could easily stop doing? This book is a must read for anyone who cares about bears, for sure, as it is filled with much solid data and information along with some good stories about people who had bad days with bears. With this book as a starting point, it is time to learn all we can about bears before we don't have them around anymore. I hope this author is still on the leading edge of what is being learned about bears today and will soon share new information with the public with another excellent book. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people living successfully and safely in close proximity to bears, but the skill of doing so can't be taught easily to the general pubic without risk of liability. Maybe the next book could be titled "unattack" and be an examination of the things that have worked for people who see bears everyday.

True Stories of Bear Attacks: Who Survived and Why
$14.95
This book is very well written and offers many interesting bear attack stories. The only negative aspect about it was that its main purpose was to promote the use of bear spray, and if you're reading it for the attack factor it's written more in an educational capacity than one that will entertain you.

Bear Attacks of the Century: True Stories of Courage and Survival
$16.95
I've read several books on bears, bear attacks and hiking in bear country. I bought this book because I was interested in learning more about the experience of others when involved in bear encounters. We are avid hikers and so thought it a good idea to be educated as best we can about bear encounters. I had no idea that the book was written primarily about hunters' encounters with bears and their "bravado" in fighting them off. The wording, descriptions and stories are third party and at times ridiculous. This book sensationalizes bear attacks and makes bears out to be stalking monsters while hunters are made out to be hero's bravely beating, shooting, and/or stabbing them to death. In addition, the author practically pitches gun carrying by all who dare go out in the wilderness. I wish I hadn't spent the money.