This may belong in the general forum so move as necessary.
I found this article interesting on several levels. Given the recent change in the law allowing licensed individuals to carry in federal parks, a hiker in Alaska was armed with a .45 handgun when a grizzly charged his female companion. The armed hiker shot and killed the bear. Details are sketchy, but the article indicates nine shots were fired with an unidentified number striking the bear.
Link to the Fairbanks Daily News Article is below.
So your allowed to carry in the park, you just cant discharge it. That makes alot of sense.What do they want us to do with it, throw it at an attacker or just show it to them and scare them away. A person may be thwarted by the sight of a gun but I don’t think the bear is gonna know the difference.
The Associated Press
Monday, May 31, 2010 6:48 AM EDT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Alaska’s Denali National Park, officials said.
A man and woman reported that they were hiking Friday evening when the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman, park spokeswoman Kris Fister said in a statement.
The man fired nine rounds from his .45 caliber, semiautomatic pistol at the animal, which then stopped and walked into the brush.
The two reported the shooting to rangers, who restricted access to the Igloo Canyon area for fear that the bear was wounded and dangerous.
On Saturday, rangers found the dead bear about 100 feet from the shooting site. Park officials are determining the justification for the shooting. It’s legal to carry firearms in that area of the park but illegal to discharge them.
Rangers said it was the first known instance of a grizzly bear being shot by a visitor in the wilderness portion of Denali, formerly called Mount McKinley National Park.
Damn, if it takes nine rounds of .45 to just get the bear to back down what does it take to take one out quickly? Should I be taking my Ruger Vaquero w/ six rounds of .45LC +P when I go hiking?
Actually, it makes a lot of sense. If the discharge of firearms were regularly allowed you’d have target shooting, just plain blowing off rounds, etc. Remember, lots of rules have to be made to account for the lowest common denominator. A wise old Gunny once told me, “every rule has someone’s name attached to it”.
I was just reading an article about good bear caliber’s, and they said if your going to go with 45, it should be ball ammo, to get better penetration than HP’s. Ted Nugent carry’s a Glock20, so he can have 15 rds of 10mm to back up his bow & arrows.
As kmrtnsn stated, it does make sense. It’s the same as not being able to discharge your CCW at your leisure. I’m sure the parks department wants to make sure that this wasn’t just some jack-ass that shot at a bear in passing, and that it was a real self defense situation. If it was, I’m sure the shooter will be fine.
I think that this guy was lucky. If a mother is defending her cubs, or if the bear is really hungry, they will ignore hits unless they are physically disabled by the hits. There have been a number of grizzly attacks in the northern Rockies in which the bear died from its wounds several minutes after killing the shooter. Their instinctual drive to defend and eat is hard for us to conceive. You really need nothing short of a .44mag in order to have ideal levels of penetration and the ability to punch through larger internal bone structure. Typical .44mag loads such as the Hornady 300gr XTP have an average penetration of 20+ inches in gel. My desert eagle is a heavy SOB, but it’s a much better shooter than a revolver. The 10mm has “slightly” better penetration than the service calibers, but is very weak in comparison to true magnum calibers.
Jackson, Wyo. » The successful prosecution of a Jackson Hole hunter who claimed self defense after killing a grizzly could set a precedent in Greater Yellowstone, where the grizzly population is expanding and loaded guns are now allowed in national parks, experts say.
A jury recently found 41-year-old Stephen Westmoreland guilty of a misdemeanor charge of illegally taking a grizzly bear stemming from an incident in September when he shot a bear. He argued self defense in a trial that hinged on the behavior of the bear, among other things.
Mark Bruscino, bear management program supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, testified at the trial about how bears act before they attack a person and told jurors that most often bruins will retreat during an encounter.
“This whole thing adds up to that people need to make sure they are in a self-defense situation,” Bruscino said in an interview after the trial. “You can’t kill wildlife based on an undemonstrated fear of an unrealistic threat.”
Last year, seven grizzly bears were killed by hunters and hikers in self defense situations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Teton County Attorney Steve Weichman, who prosecuted the Westmoreland case, said it is one of the first instances in the country where a person was convicted of taking wildlife when claiming self defense.
Westmoreland shot the animal at 40 yards after he encountered it feeding on a moose carcass. The animal died on the other side of the moose from Westmoreland and without charging.
In their verdict, jurors seemed to acknowledge that Westmoreland had no malicious intent when he killed the animal. But they were convinced he was not defending himself from a real threat.
“Under the circumstances, we feel the defendant acted out of fear instead of self defense,” the verdict said.
About 3-5 years ago they had an attack in the park. Two tourists and the bear jump off a large rock from above and mauled them pretty good. Rangers came in, tracked the bear and killed it. Apparently the bear had been shot about an estimated 7-10 prior and they found 3 38 cal slugs in it. The slugs had only penetrated I believe 3-5 inches and basically no vitals were damaged.
A few days later, they found the shooter, a camper just outside the park who’d been mauled and killed. It was rather graffic but it goes to making sure you got the right load for the job at hand.
Most handguns are pitifully underpowered for serious/dangerous animals like a bear. It starts at the .44 mag and goes up from there.
I had an encounter several years ago here on my ranch with a mtn lion and was glad to have the .44 with me - a stainless S&W 4" Mtn Gun. I lived. He didn’t.
That is what I carry. Specifically Cor-Bon 45LC +P 200gr. JHP, but a .44 mag works too. Realize that here in Colorado I am, at worst, dealing with black bears and mt. lion and even then would prefer something in the carbine/rifle realm. As others have stated here: Handguns are poor stoppers.
Buddy of mine was going to go fishing in Alaska for salmon, I forgot where. He called up there and talked to a ranger and asked about carrying a 45LC Vaquero for bear protection. There was a slight pause on the phone and the female ranger replied that he could bring a small gun like that, but they carry pistol grip shotguns with slugs.
I think brains and luck are your best bet against bears.
