Bear witness to whether this is the proverbial 'good shoot'?

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Will have to wait for the bear's statement. He was probably doing his usual rounds as he's done for X years when this obnoxious dog begins making rude comments provoking him. He went to discuss this further when the human drew his pistol and discharged it striking him in several spots. Lawsuit coming. Now if this were the Active Self Protection channel, John would have said the bear should have kept his ego in check and not get drawn into these type of encounters. ;)

The hotel/motel likely has had similar encounters in which case they would have signage about the possibility of bears being on the property. Hotels we've been to that are within similar areas have signage and the desk staff also relay about wild animals that may wander onto the property at night.


The sucky thing about this is right wrong or indifferent that bear is probably going to die a slow painful death. I want to be clear I am in no way blaming the guy that shot the bear but if that hotel honestly was baiting the bear for the tourists this is 100% their fault and I hope he sues them into bankruptcy
 
Cannot say that I have ever witnessed a Ferrari at a Motel 6.. :p

Usually not. But at this one you might. There aren't a lot of nice hotels oddly. Especially in the older part of gatlinburg near Dollywood. There is one christmas themed one that annoyingly blasts holiday music year round and is decorated up for 150-200 a night. And then back out of town a bit there is a wilderness lodge with a massive water park deal that is even higher. It's actually a rather big motel 6 (if it actually was the motel 6 in gatlinburg but who knows) . And the back of it overlooks the river (as many there do) and its literally backed up to the smokey mountains, if you spit off of the back balconies you hit the trees or river..... And yes you will see bear often. I did see about 20 porsches at it once but can't recall a Ferrari. As i said though, I once went to an uppity champagne new year party and was surrounded by 200k dollar cars. Personally I was in a rather nice GMC Sierra with some slight front end deer damage that I still owed for.
The town has car shows often, plus during fall people come from all over to look at the leaves falling off, a concept that to a born and raised local seems asinine. Another local town has a yearly wooly worm race that attracts thousands.....
 
For what it’s worth, I didn’t say they often used poor judgement, I said they sometimes did.
The bottom line, is that someone who lives with bears as part of their day to day existence might take a short charge differently than somebody from Indianapolis or Omaha. For anybody, the experience of a charge that could be measured in feet as easily as yards would be unnerving. As others have pointed out, there isn’t a lot of room to dodge a bear on the walkway of a Motel 6.
When I hiked the AT in 75 (Hiawassee had one three aisle grocery at the time) the only place where bears were a concern was in Shenandoah NP. Today they are a concern for almost the entire length of the trail with the densest population being in NJ. Maybe the time has come for longer hunting seasons. At any extent, in a town where the entire economy is based on tourism, and at just about any day of the year out of towners will greatly outnumber locals, a bear being allowed free rein where it will inevitably encounter humans not expecting such a thing should not have been tolerated.

Same as Good Ol Boy, I would take a charge by any animal seriously. A good size boar is similar to an NFL lineman with claws instead of cleats. Get in his way when he is trying to leave is not wise.

Where we live, bears are just part of the neighborhood. I have more concerns with the big cats who might see my dogs as a tasty meal. At our last residence, we never saw a bear; just deer, foxes and coyotes. So, our experience with bears is pretty much limited to what we've seen and what two GA Game Wardens told us.

No offense to anyone who does enjoy eating bear meat; I don't.. Perhaps, a longer hunting season and raising the limits for people who hunt bear would help?
 
When I was a kid living outside of Happy Camp, California, right on the Klamath River, bears were everywhere. I did everything but play tag with them
I was never charged by a bear, although I was watched and followed a lot.
Sometimes I followed the young boars until they got tired of the game and jumped in the bushes and shook them to tell me to go away.
One point: I never did this when I was accompanied by a dog.
Dogs just piss bears off.
I also avoided carrying any food or anything that might interest a bear.
These bears were very well fed, but there's no need to push your luck... .
 
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