Recent hikes in the Shawnee National Forest inspired me to research critters I was unfamiliar with; bobcats, rattlesnakes and copperheads. The process led me to consider fear in general. We are afraid of things we don’t understand, right? In theory, education will ease fear. Isn’t learning about an environment better than walking around scared of the unknown? I decided to go to the top of the list of things that send adrenaline coursing through my body when I hear a twig snap behind me. Bear.
Humans share the forest with Black Bear in Michigan. That’s a fact. How does one survive a Black Bear attack? The basic rules are; be big, be loud, don’t turn around and never run. That’s straightforward enough, but does it help? I decided to dig deeper.
I searched, “How many fatal Black Bear attacks occurred in Michigan’s lower peninsula last year?” Zero. The last decade? Also, zero. The last fifty years? Zero. I was confused. When WAS the last fatal Black Bear attack? The answer is 1883.
I was stunned. The most recent fatal Black Bear attack in the lower peninsula of Michigan was in 1883. Frank Devereaux was found near Cheboygan, Michigan.
That’s one hundred and forty years ago.
This perspective changed everything I imagined about a Black Bear encounter. On a bad day, when my imagination ran wild, I used to think about being killed and eaten by a Bear. All the hundreds of thousands of people in Nature (making good and bad choices) resulted in one death in one hundred and forty years? Those are good odds. I’ll move Bear off the list of things to worry about while hiking.
Do you know what’s weird? When they found Frank’s body, the body of the bear was next to him. They both died.