Russian Brown Bears

[Shadow]

(12-12-2020, 12:00 AM)Shadow Wrote: This is one site and interesting article from 2008 which I noticed. When opening the link it´s in Russian so translator is needed when reading it.

The person who wrote this article is:

OLGA VLADIMIROVNA KUVYKINA
biologist , winner of the "Book of the Year" award (2010, for the book "Letters of Insects")

graduate of the Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov

journalist, author of popular science articles and books

WWF supporter
Research interests: palynology, allergology, higher plants, endemics, nature conservation, regional studies, mythology


Article is: 

"Meeting with a bear

The shaggy "master of the taiga" has a moody temper, and his behavior is unpredictable."

One interesting quote how she sees brown bears of her homeland:


"Aggressiveness of bears depends on their habitat - for example, Caucasian and Central Russian bears are considered peaceful. Biologists have more than once shared with me their stories of how they encountered bears feeding in raspberry or hogweed bushes, and peacefully dispersed. 

Bears in  Kamchatka are also relatively calm, if the year turned out to be fruitful for berries, nuts and fish. The most "vicious" bears are found in the  Siberian taiga , but even here it all depends on the case - each toptygin has its own character. If the bear is scared, hungry or has a toothache, he will attack a person. Himalayan bears try to avoid meeting people, but if this happens, they rush to the person in fright. 

The bear does not feel reverence for man as a being of a "higher order" and treats him approximately like a tiger. Some brown bears are enraged by one kind of people and, when they meet, they may even start throwing stones, especially if, having climbed  some hill, they see a person below. Mostly large males are distinguished by such antics - they are generally “infernal” creatures, on occasion they will not disdain to pick up and eat a smaller young bear or a cub. "


Whole article is interesting to read: http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/telegraph/theory/569/

One interesting part from that same article above.

Quote:

"As a typical example of human stupidity, I will cite the Kamchatka story from Mikhail Krechmar, a biologist, hunting expert, a great connoisseur of bears and the author of the most interesting book "The Shaggy God":

Quote:Suddenly, the lookout saw a bear swimming across the river near the ship.
“Guys, bear,” he shouted.
At first they did not understand him. Say, what a house. But having heard what was happening, the crew made a courageous decision - to take the bear on a ram. The unfortunate beast was spinning like a top in the water, trying to avoid the blow, but when the bulk of the nose hung right over him, he radically changed his tactics. He turned around, caught his claws on the fender hanging above the water and climbed onto the deck like a cat. With one blow of his paw, he broke the fire hook in the hands of the boatswain in half, with the next blow knocked the boatswain down from his feet and remained the only owner of the ship. The rest of the crew, seeing the decisiveness of the beast, chose to disembark right in the middle of the river. The barge that lost control hit the shore, and the bear, jumping over the side, disappeared into the forest, into which he was so eager. 

In this case, there were no casualties, although it usually happens otherwise. Confirmation of this is the numerous deaths of photographers who got too close to the bears. More such photographers have died than from the paws of tigers or shark teeth. Probably, you have also seen the photographs of Vitaly Nikolaenko, Michio Hoshimo and other photographers, where the bears are captured almost point-blank. "

This is a picture, which is said to be from that book, nicely drawn.

*This image is copyright of its original author

I wonder if someone here has read that book or knows more about this possible incident? I find it something in the limits of possible. If a bear reaches up enough to get a grip on the side of the boat like in the picture I have no doubt that it could climb in the boat quickly. But is this kind of incident mentioned somewhere else too or only in this book? It would be very interesting to know more if this really happened. If it happened like told above then those people for sure deserved to swim :) Reply