• @[email protected]
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      12 months ago

      This is truer than you know. Well, the killing a polar bear part.

      When Eskimos really got modern metallic cartridge firearms post WW2, they for some reason decided that the .223 Remington cartridge, (precursor of the 5.56 NATO round), was the best thing ever to hunt with. And you can be positive more than one polar bear got itself killed by the mommy of the the 5.56 NATO. And a bolt action rifle in .223 remains popular with them to this day.

  • @[email protected]
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    52 months ago

    Polar bears are very curious animals, so if you back away while slowly undressing they will stop to inspect each piece of clothing, giving you time to get away.

    • Prethoryn Overmind
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      32 months ago

      They are also one of the few, next to tigers, land predators that actually have a taste for human blood. The nature of a polar bear thinks it can eat it then it will certainly try. You also absolutely cannot out run them.

  • @[email protected]
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    122 months ago

    *first floor windows don’t go nuts guys no way that lad is reaching all the way to the second floor

  • @[email protected]
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    182 months ago

    Worked in Yellowstone for a summer.

    Spent some time with the rangers. They got all sorts of questions…

    Like which handgun caliber would be best to defend oneself from a bear.

    Essentially, the ranger broke it down stating there was a weakness in the skull about the size of a bullet that you had to hit directly to have a chance of dropping a bear with a handgun. While its coming at you and pissed/hungry.

    So essentially, you’ve just pissed off the bear before it gets it claws on you.

    Well placed slugs from shotguns, rifle rounds, and preferably (according to the ranger in question) a tranquilizer to re-home the bear away from people. That being said, the bears are tracked to an extent and bears who show repeated behavior endangering themselves/tourists tend to be exterminated, sadly.

    Hand to claw combat? Human is going down.

    This is why in the past, when bears were hunted, they were hunted in their dens during hibernation - at the end of spears to keep that hungry bear as far away as possible from your soft easily rent flesh.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 months ago

        It entirely depends on the bear species, but in general guns are a last resort defense against bears.

        Primary defense is avoidance and making it so they can avoid you. A bear will eat you, but is unlikely to hunt you. For most bears we’re an unknown quantity so they’ll avoid us, since other food is reasonably available with less risk.

        A bear has heavy fur, thick skin for storing winter fat deposits, and dense bones. While bullets will injure the bear and perhaps even kill it, it won’t be enough to save you.
        Much like how hitting someone on the head with a glass bottle will hurt them, almost certainly injure them, and potentially kill them, the type of injury is likely to be a fractured skull or brain bleed. Extremely serious and deadly, but they have minutes of functionality and hours of bewildered stumbling before they black out.

        So it’ll likely die… Later. For now you have a scared, confused and pissed off bear.

        I believe hollow points have less penetration power, so it might not even get through the hide. Other bullets will get through fine, but are unlikely to stop the bear dead.

        • console.log(bathing_in_bismuth)
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          2 months ago

          Woah. I must ask further in my quest to understand last resort bear encounter gun tips. What about an .45 calibred pistol with an magazine alternating between normal and hollow points? I get the skull take, even some fighting dogs are immune to 9mm skull shots. I don’t live in America, don’t own a gun but know a lot about guns, just very interested in this topic

          • @[email protected]
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            22 months ago

            .44 magnum is barely on par with an intermediate rifle round like 5.56 against large game. And that’s before considering the massively lower felt recoil or the fact that a rifle is much easier to aim

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                I carry a .45-70 rifle with me when I’m up north. The high powered rounds I have for bears will also fell an elephant. (In theory. I really don’t want to find out.)

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                I haven’t heard of .500 blackout before, and google gives conflicting info on whether it’s “necked down .338 lapua magnum” or “like .510 whisper”

                polar bears have historically been felled with “panicked shooting with ar-15”, and the “standard recommendation” seems to be “magnum rifle round”

          • @[email protected]
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            12 months ago

            Your question is 100% valid.

            All these people piling on you claiming a bear will just shrug off having a hand gun emptied into it. That just sounds like bullshit to me, they aren’t robots… Bullets aren’t pellets that shit will penetrate and any species with a survival instinct will back up.

            I simply cannot believe what people are saying? Is there any proof or is it all just made up speculation people make by extrapolating size and injuries caused by bullets?

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              Angry humans can take several 9mm rounds to the abdomen and continue to advance.

              Bullets also aren’t magical death pellets. A bear has about 20 inches of hair, skin, fat, and muscle to get through before organ damage, assuming you miss a bone.

              A bear that hasn’t committed to an attack is entirely likely to decide “fight” isn’t worth it after the equivalent of getting stabbed in the shoulder by a screwdriver.
              If it’s already decided that violence is the right way to handle the “you” threat it may continue to attack until it cannot. Then it becomes relevant that many guns don’t have the power to disable a beat before it gets to you and does serious damage. The bear dying in 30 seconds doesn’t help you if it’s last act is to break your arm, and put a two inch deep slash in the side of your neck. The goal isn’t to kill the bear, the goal is to keep it from attacking you. That requires a lot more gun, since the near can move and attack very fast.

              This is also deep in the realm of “what if”. Most bear encounters involving a firearm resolve successfully without even shooting the bear. They don’t like loud noises and will run from basically anything. The most encountered bears will usually run from shouting and waving your arms.
              But if you’re looking to get a gun for bear defense, you need to consider that they’re extremely durable critters, and to cover what can happen probably requires more than most handguns can deliver.

              Avoidance is a better first defense, followed by pepper spray.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      That reminds me of a dirty joke.

      Tourist: So, which would you recommend for self-defense against a grizzly: a hunting rifle, or a large-caliber pistol?

      Ranger: The pistol.

      Tourist: Really? Why’s that?

      Ranger: Because it’ll hurt less when the bear shoves it up your ass.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    180 seconds (3 minutes) is a hilarious overestimation of any fighter’s ability. Unless you’re counting the time it takes to bleed out.

    • huf [he/him]
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      72 months ago

      the grizzly is telling him “Ah, Jesus. I wish you could see this. Light’s coming up. I’ve never seen a painting that captures the beauty of the ocean at a moment like this. I’m gonna make you rich, Bud Fox. Yeah. Rich enough, you can afford a girl like Darien. This is your wake-up call, pal. Go to work.”

  • FundMECFS
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    2 months ago

    Fun fact: Grizzlies and Polar Bears are the same species according to the Biological Species Concept.

    Meaning they interbreed in the wild (somewhat rare), and produce viable offspring that can have babies as well.

    We’re actually noticing this happening more and more with climate change. As Grizzly populations move further and further north, they’re encountering polar bears more often and are more likely to mate. Some scientists actually think within the next couple centuries due to arctic sea ice pretty much disappearing polar bears will either go extinct, or interbreed with grizzlies so much that there isn’t a “pure” polar bear left. Most likely a mix of both.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 months ago

      There are tons and tons and tons of species that can do this. It’s not clear to me what the prevailing species concept is nowadays, if we’re even still following one.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      Fun fact: Grizzlies and Polar Bears are the same species according to the Biological Species Concept.

      Calling it that gives it too much credit, it is something thought up in the 17th/18th century without any concept of genetics and evolution.

      Which might explain why it breaks down almost instantly under any amount of scrutiny.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 months ago

        It’s a category. All lines are arbitrary to a degree and “interbreeds and produces viable offspring” is not exceedingly arbitrary. You can have arguments around populations which could and would interbreed if they weren’t geographically distinct, you can argue about whether offspring needs to be viable no matter which way around the sexes of the parents are, or how large the percentage of viable offspring needs to be, but in the end, yep it makes sense to have a distinction somewhere around that bunch of criteria.

        House cats and European wild cats are considered distinct species not because they’re genetically incompatible, but because they don’t interbreed to any significant degree – too many behavioural differences, and we’re not speaking about culture, here. So even if they could intermingle in theory in practice they don’t, so they stay separate, so they’re different species.

        It’s kind of… a behavioural view on the genome? If you have a better idea, field it, there has to be some dividing line because taxa for the taxonomy god.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 months ago

        Close enough that we probably helped bred them out of existence. Neanderthal genetic markers show up with some regularity in certain modern human populations.

        Edit to add: While humans didn’t breed them out of existence, we certainly did intermix with them. And that does help to maintain their existence yet today.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 months ago

      Biologists wouldn’t say they’re the same species, because biologists are aware of interspecies hybrids and the species problem.

  • Oniononon
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    642 months ago

    They may kill SEAL with a slap but how many polar bear slaps does it take to kill members of other special forces?

  • @[email protected]
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    242 months ago

    Fighting bears isn’t that common of an encounter. I’d be more worried about deer and coyotes or even a single cougar than the off chance of encountering a bear. They will definitely fuck you up but it’s not like they are starting their day to be like “Imma go murder a human” in the same way other urban-adjacent animals are—I think they just wanna get that sweet sweet pick-a-nic basket.

    dies from turkey assault

    • @[email protected]
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      82 months ago

      Polar bears will absolutely try to hunt you. They’ll eat anything that moves. The only way to deal with a polar bear is a gun.

        • kakler bitmap
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          52 months ago

          The ancient drawing was by a caveman trying to convince his caveman bros that he could totally take a polar bear.

      • djsoren19
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        22 months ago

        Tbh, even if you have a gun, your odds are not 100%. You’re firing at essentially a biological tank, small caliber fire might cause pain and eventually kill a polar bear with non-vital shots, but it’s not going to stop one barreling down on you.

        Realistically, you need to be a decent enough marksmen to aim for a vital point, all while making your will saves because a giant monster is charging you. I’m pretty sure most humans are still fucked.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 months ago

          Yup they’re dangerous as fuck. My mom (kindergarten director) once visited a kindergarten in Svalbard, Norway where there’s a rifle hanging on the wall above where the kids get dressed.
          The idea being that if a polar bear wanders towards the village, it’s essential to be able to fight it off and protect the children.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      You mean there are single cougars in your local area ? I always thought these ads were lying

      • @[email protected]
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        82 months ago

        There are enough of them that I no longer go in certain areas of the forest unless I’m armed. And I always have 2 arms on me at all times.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 months ago

      Moose are not to be trifled with either. If you accidentally put yourself between mama and baby, you’re gonna have a real bad time

  • @[email protected]
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    32 months ago

    The bear in the mural does not look tall enough to look in a second story window. Is that a young one?