Hi all,
The bear story reminded me of an encounter I had with an Asiatic Black bear a
few years ago in 1995 while birding in Khao Yai NP in Thailand.
I had been birding the trails all day and I was walking along a roadway
en-route to my camping area when I saw a young Black Bear up ahead on the edge
of the road. He was feeding on some fruit which had clearly been passed to him
from a car.
So, what to do?
I came up with a most cunning plan. I would walk towards the bear ? I had
little choice if I wanted to get back to my camp before nightfall. And when
and if he approached me I would throw some food to the ground away from me and
slip past him and then down the road. As I said ? cunning.
So I got some food out of my bag; a small plastic bag of banana chips ? dried
banana. The bear sniffed loudly and waddled slowly in my direction, a handful
of banana chips were flung over his head, he quickly turned a devoured the
chips. ?Too easy,? I thought as one does when outwitting a bear..
However [you knew that there would be a however?] the bear was surprisingly
quick to eat the banana and grunted loudly, stood upright on his two hind legs
and walked directly towards me. I meekly held out the bag and said, ?You?ll be
wanting these?.
The bear swung a lazy paw that connected largely with the bag and, to a lesser
extent with my hand.
The bag was ripped apart and the chips devoured. My hand had a tiny drop of
blood where his claw had removed a pen prick of skin.
After that I calmly walked on to the campground where I eagerly accepted a
small glass of Song Thip Whisky provided by some generous Thais.
For the record, the bear was cute however I would not claim him to be cuddly.
I have also seen bears while i was on foot in Nepal, India and North America.
In every instance except the one above bears have been very quick to give me
right of way and do a runner.
Ken Cross
------------------------------------------
From: Carl Clifford <>
To: ;
Subject: If you go down to the woods in Thailand.....
Quite a few Australian birders head off to Thailand for a spot of birding. Here
is a story from near Chiang Mai that serves as a reminder that not all the
wildlife one can encounter in the area is cute and cuddly.
http://www.chiangmaicitynews.com/news.php?id=2492
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
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