A Real Bear Story

Things are a little different up here (Alaska), we see bears and bear sign every time we go to the woods unless it's winter. We wouldn't be doing much in the woods if we went home every time we saw a bear or bear activity. We learn to be in bear country, how to act and how not to act. No offense meant to you. It's kind of like doing stuff in the winter up here, if we stayed home when it's 20 below zero or colder, we wouldn't get out of the house for six months or more each winter. Everything is relative. Be safe, have fun.
 
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I notice on the one Alaska shows that they are hunting black bears for meat. They mentioned a "blueberry bear". Horace Kephart mentioned eating them several times in his one book for bear in the Smoky Mt area (TN/NC). I had always heard that bear meat wasn't so tasty. Is this generally true in Alaska?
 
I notice on the one Alaska shows that they are hunting black bears for meat. They mentioned a "blueberry bear". Horace Kephart mentioned eating them several times in his one book for bear in the Smoky Mt area (TN/NC). I had always heard that bear meat wasn't so tasty. Is this generally true in Alaska?

It all depends on what bear you eat. generally, if they are on berries, are young, and/or a sow, they can taste pretty good. Like any other meat they need to be handled properly. People treat them just like pork. On the hand, if it is a boar in the rut and eating rotten salmon that are just thawing out of the ice from last years spawn, they are not going to taste very good. I've never eaten grizzly that tasted good. But black bears can be quite good.

PS, it goes without saying (I know you know this), watch the reality shows for enjoyment only, almost none of the information on reality shows should be taken for fact (With the exception of maybe one show, "The Last Alaskans". But even they are taking some liberties with the truth.)
 
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We get a lot of black bears here as we've surrounded by a very nice working forest that runs along salmon bearing lakes and streams and lots of fruit trees in either active orchards or scrub stuff that's gone wild, and of course lots berries growing along all the popular local trails. I'll see fresh bear scat in at least one or two spots when I walk the dogs. We're on the edge of small town suburbia with agricultural land right out the front But despite all that fresh scat I'm still yet to see any bears in the 11 years we've been here. We did have an incident a couple years ago when someone dumped garbage bags 2 doors down and a cub appeared and tore them open. They shooed it away and cleaned (I didn't see that one either). No hits on our cherries or grapes or on the next plum trees that have gone wild.

Bears here are well shy of humans. You might run across an aggressive young one in the spring up higher in the trees when they wake up hungry but luckily everyone is co-existing well.
 
We have begun seeing more black bears. One crossed the road near us, and one was in a tree a 100 yards from my late mother's house (less than two blocks from downtown). There have been bear hunts (party hunts with dogs for many years in the mountains) but seeing them this often is a relatively recent occurrence. We even had a few Elk showing up in backyards (from GSMNP) last fall.
 
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