A man who stopped an attacking grizzly in British Columbia, Canada, by punching the bear the face was just as good as he was lucky, some experienced Wyoming outdoorsmen said.
It’s possible to fight off a grizzly with a stout punch to the snout, but only as an absolute last-ditch tactic.
“By that point, a lot of things will have gone wrong,” retired Forest Service and National Park ranger Richard Jones told Cowboy State Daily.
Jones’ father was also a park ranger, so he lived among bears in Yellowstone National Park as a child, and now lives in the North Fork near Cody, where grizzlies are common.
“I’ve deterred aggressive dogs and a lot of other animals with a smack to the nose. Most animals have a very sensitive nose,” Jones said.
Though rare, somebody surviving an attack by punching the bear isn’t unheard of, said retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody, who frequently hikes in grizzly country.
“Since the nose, along with eyes, is probably the most sensitive spot on a bear's body, a severe blow there has in the past successfully caused the bear to change her mind about the attack,” he said.
Man Says His Bike Helped Save The Day
According to reports, the unidentified man told Canadian wildlife officers that he was mountain biking in a forested area when he had a surprise encounter with a mother grizzly and two cubs.
The mother bear charged him and knocked him down, but he kept his bicycle between himself and the bear, according to reports.
He told wildlife officers that just when he figured that he was out of options, he recalled accounts of a man who had stopped a bear by punching it in the nose.
So he swung as hard as he could, smacked the grizzly a good one, and the startled mamma bear broke off her attack, according to reports.
The extent of the man’s injuries wasn’t reported, but he was able to get back on his bicycle and ride until he found help.
‘Not Quite As Unique As It Sounds’
Neal said there have been other accounts of people punching grizzlies.
“This situation is not quite as unique as it sounds,” he said. “It has been done before, and the man got away with it. See William Wright's book ‘The Grizzly Bear’ from 1909, for example,” he said.
Smacking a grizzly in the snout will probably work if the bear is being defensive, Neal added.
“However, it was usually done when the bear was attacking defensively such as a mother with young,” he said.
Grizzlies almost never attack people with the intent of trying to kill and eat them. But when that happens, all bets are off, Neal said.
“In the case of a predacious attack, then the victim must fight back with everything that he has, and the nose and eyes should be his top targets,” Neal said.
But getting oneself into a situation where throwing hands at a grizzly is the only option isn’t something Neal recommends.
In those overwhelming majority of attacks where a grizzly is being defensive, Neal recommends using bear spray and “playing dead.”
Just Avoid The Situation To Begin With
Jones said that in his experience, “animals don’t really have any sense of proportion,” so a grizzly might not realize how much bigger it is than the person it’s attacking.
So, it could be that a person wiling to deliver a stiff poke to the nose will appear to be the big, bad one from the bear’s perspective, he said.
However, like Neal, he noted that testing the likelihood of punching a grizzly working in one’s favor isn’t wise. It’s best to stay alert in grizzly country and avoid run-ins with bears to begin with.
Prominent Wyoming outdoorsman Guy Eastman agreed that fists are the last thing anybody should consider using against grizzly.
He’s hunted all over the world, including for grizzlies in British Columbia.
In a dire situation “you do what you can, I guess,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I don’t think a punch from a human would be much of a deterrent for a bear. Shooting it would be better.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
