That article has an unusual amount of detail.
Do any of you Alaskan surveyors know this guy??ÿ It seems as though he really kept his wits about himself.?ÿ Typical surveyor stock.
Licensed Land Surveyor
Finger Lakes Region, Upstate New York
Encountering a carnivorous creature that outweighs an individual would seem like the ultimate terror to me.?ÿ And I can't imagine which was worse; the attack or the hour wait for help.?ÿ I'm sure every snapping twig during that hour brought on a fresh adrenaline rush.
Glad he survived and is healing.?ÿ What a story for the grandkids.
He can now add his name to the list of six people he knows who have been mauled by bears in Alaska.
??I guess I feel lucky,? Minish said of his encounter with the bear, after someone told him it??s better than being dead.
??In all honesty, it wouldn??t have mattered either way. You know, if it killed me, it killed me. I had a good life; I??m moving on. It didn??t kill me, so now let??s move on to the other direction of trying to stay alive,? he said.
You got to love this guy!?ÿ Not many coming up in the ranks that are going to be this tuff! Jp
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Just part of the reality of working outside urban areas and I do mean just outside urban areas. The area this happened has a rather low density of brown bears but one can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Believe it or not but brown bears are fairly common around the city limits of the largest city in the state, Anchorage and they follow the greenbelts into the city. What's surprising is that it doesn't happen more often, but often enough to keep one on their toes. Spring I'm always a bit on guard as bears are hungry and moose are dropping calves which the bears are trying to sniff out. They get one, they'll guard it and attack anyone that stumbles onto their stash. The whole idea that a gun is going to save you is just BS. I've just heard too many stories of hunters shooting a brownie through the heart and it runs a hundred plus yards up hill towards where the shot came from. Not arm chair quarterbacking, but he shouldn't have been alone. He's one lucky dude.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Wow! If I lived near critters like that a piece of standard equipment would be an AK47 with 4 or more Mag47 clips. ?????ÿ
@flga-2-2 Funny. I feel the same way in most urban areas in the lower 48. I'm way more scared of getting hit by cars.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
I'm not sure what a second person would have done.?ÿ I'm guessing you'd mostly just have two mauled people instead of one.
But there is also the chance he may outrun you.
If you??re cruising around any major city in FL, or any major city for that matter, after 2:00am you are more likely to be shot at than rather than hit by a car. ?????ÿ
His comment,
??That??s the one lesson learned,? he said. ??I should have had somebody with me.??ÿ
sums up his now famous encounter with a nod toward human ignorance. This type thing is saddening to me, but I have no sympathy for premeditated stupidity. But of course I??m glad he is OK. ?????ÿ
I don't want to make light of this terrible encounter but a couple of years ago while surveying in suburbia, I found the prism pole to be 100% effective in fending off an amorous crack-crazed prostitute early one Sunday morning.
I had to "dispatch" about a 300 pound black bear in my camp in 2016. I was one of four people in the whole campground, the other three were my late brother and a couple who have been our friends for years. I have had many bear encounters in camp in this area over the years and successfully run them off. This one was different.
First encounter was just after dark when he pulled an ice chest out of the couple's truck bed (no bear lockers there at that time - there are now). He started to open it and we ran him off with the typical yells and banging pots. He came back shortly and we ran him off again. He returned a third time and I decided to fire off a warning round from my 12 gauge into a tree near him. He bolted.
All quiet for about two hours and it was time to turn in. We secured things as much as we could. I had just gotten in my tent but left a lantern running outside. Wasn't 3 minutes and I heard noises right in my camp. Grabbed my gun and went out. He was under a banquet table in my camp about 30' feet from me, moving in my direction with the still burning fire ring between us. I yelled, but he kept advancing. He turned to expose his left shoulder and I fired, using a home defense round of triple ought buck and a slug. He bellowed and spun, cart-wheeling into the darkness away from me. My campmates burst out of their tents. He came to rest maybe 40 feet outside my camp and was motionless and quiet. My brother insisted I make sure he was dead, so I put another round between his shoulder blades and he never moved or made a sound.?ÿ
Needless to say, my adrenalin level was off the charts. After a couple of minutes my brother said "well, it's all over, time to get back to bed" and they all went back to their tents, leaving me reeling and trembling at near midnight.
I went in my tent and put some clothes on (was in sleeping shorts and slippers) and spent the next few hours feeding the fire, drinking adult beverages, trying to calm down while replaying the whole event over and over again. After calming down (mostly) I spent the rest of the night fretting about the trouble I might be in. I called Fish and Game about 7:30 am and a warden called me back shortly thereafter. He asked for the location and also asked who had seen it. He said he would be there as fast as he could before any other people showed up.
He arrived with another warden about an hour later. We loaded the bear in the truck bed after he looked the scene over, then they took our statements. He also inspected the dumpsters in the area and found that none of the bear locks worked. He deemed the shooting as a "legal taking of an aggressive and potentially dangerous animal" and said it was about a four year old male. Based on the behavior it displayed, he said it wasn't a matter of if, but when, it was going to require their intervention, hopefully before someone got hurt. They also chewed out the camp host (who was making his rounds) about the lack of bear locks on the dumpster, saying that likely contributed greatly to the incident.
They took it and dumped it in the national forest somewhere. About an hour after they left, two cars pulled into the campsite closest to where the bear went down (besides mine) and about 5 little kids and couple of small dogs jumped out. We had raked the area where the bear had been to obscure the bodily fluids left behind. Those people never had any idea what had transpired there about 10 hours prior, but every dog that walked by over the next few days stopped to smell that spot.
I honestly felt like I didn't have a choice, as he could have covered the ground between us quickly and showed zero fear of me as he advanced. Never thought it would come to that, but it also told me that I can pull the trigger in self-defense if ever needed again, and worry about the consequences later.
Can't even imagine what that guy went through, but he's a tough bugger.
That is me on the left with my old dog sitting next to me looking towards the bear. He was totally deaf at that point and could barely walk, so I had leashed him in the tent. He slept through the whole thing. My tent is barely visible on the right edge of the photo.
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Minish told KTUU that he now has around 100 stitches on his head, gashes across his body and trauma to recover from. He??s hoping to leave the hospital soon and return to work as early as next week.
I like his attitude.?ÿ
Nate
I carried a firearm while guiding fishermen in Alaska.?ÿ I doubt it would have saved me in a situation where I surprised a bear but it increased my confidence and decreased my fear. I'm not sure of the science behind it, but I feel as though animals can recognize fear, so do whatever it takes to minimize it whether that be bear spray, a gun or the best protection, a barking dog.