There’s lots of reasons to be outside this time of year – hunting, fishing, hiking, fall colors, mountain biking and more. Keep in mind that bears are out there, too. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bear specialists Danielle Oyler and Jamie Jonkel recently sat down to talk about some common myths about bears. Oyler is FWP’s wildlife stewardship outreach specialist and Jonkel is FWP’s bear management specialist.

Here’s part of that conversation:

Oyler: One of the things we hear a lot from people is that they're worried about grizzlies but not so much about black bears. How do you answer that?

Jonkel: That's a tough one. You know, all wild creatures are dangerous. You always want to be wary. So, it's like working around horses. You don't want to be nonchalantly walking behind horses, reaching under their bellies, or you're going to get kicked. So you have to treat both the grizzly and the black bear with tremendous respect. But, you know, a female grizzly can be extremely dangerous, but then so can a female black bear. With any of the females, you have to be very, very cognizant that you've got a mad mother. And if you get too close to the baby, you could get hurt.

Oyler: Well, another one that I hear people say is that bears smell bad. They smell like something dead. How would you describe a bear’s smell?

Jonkel: Yeah, I hear that all the time, too. I could see how a bear that was feeding on a carcass -- a bison carcass or an elk carcass, or took over a mountain lion kill -- and it was kind of rotten, of course they would smell not pleasant. But every bear that I've handled in a trap, a snare or even a roadkill, have a really nice kind of earthy smell. And it reminds me of a root cellar. Like when I've gone into a dank root cellar to go grab some turnips and potatoes. It's that same sort of smell, a nice earthy smell. They smell like dirt. But they have a certain scent. Dogs, on the other hand, I think do smell, especially if they're wet.

Oyler: Another one I have for you is that people think that if a bear has an ear tag, it's a problem.

Jonkel: Yeah, I get that all the time. When we capture a bear, the main reason we ear tag it, especially with black bears, is because people do hunt them and eat them. And so we want to have a way of letting people know that they might have a bear that has been drugged and handled. A lot of times, we’ll capture a bear for pre-emptive reasons. It hasn't done a darn thing, but maybe it’s stuck in town in a tree, not getting into trouble, not getting into the garbage. But we have to guard it, get it out of the tree and then relocated because it's going to be hunting season in a short period of time. We'll put an ear tag in their ear, so no ear tag or collar does not mean that they're a management bear. For research purposes, they capture and radio collar a lot of black bears, a lot of grizzlies. So, yeah, that's definitely a myth.

Oyler: In a bear encounter, what's the deal with eye contact?

Jonkel: Unless I'm trying to intimidate a bear that I am about to drug or for an aversive condition, that's about the only time I do eye contact. I want to show my dominance over the bear. If a bear is in a trap, I might need him to move so I can dart him in the hind end to get him drugged. But in the wild, I never look at a bear's eyes. Nor do I do that with a mountain lion. I don't make that direct eye contact because that's sort of a challenge. And so I always will look at the bear, but to the left or the right of it. A lot of times I'll pretend like I don't see the bear. If we have a sort of a sudden encounter, he'll kind of be doing the same thing. He'll be eating some grass, and he'll be keeping an eye on me, but he won't look directly at me. Then we both sort of part ways and then we skedaddle out of there. But I have had individual bears that lock onto you with their eye contact. You know, you can correlate it to going down to the local pub to have a beer and you see some big, aggressive guy sitting at the end of the bar. He's trying to look at you because he wants to challenge you. Sometimes the best behavior is to pretend like you're unaware of him, and you start up a conversation with someone else. You pay them for a candy bar, and you leave the bar. You recognize that the situation is not a good situation. Then you calmly put yourself in a different place. I don't know if any of that makes sense.

Oyler: I think I see it. Like, sometimes people get so caught up on worrying about making eye contact, they kind of lose the rest of the “what to do” with the encounter part.

This is another good one. Is it a myth that grizzly bears or any bears can't run downhill very fast. What's that about?

Jonkel: You know, I remember when I was a kid in Boy Scouts coming across recommendations. And I think one of them was in a Popular Science article from 1960. It said that if you encounter a grizzly, run straight downhill because their claws are so long that they're unable to run downhill. Grizzlies and black bears -- all wildlife -- are in a lot better shape than we are. They're out in the mountains, traveling through rough terrain all the time. So there's no way you're going to outrun any bear -- black bear or grizzly. So yeah, that is a myth.

Another one is that a grizzly can't climb a tree because its claws are so long. Well, their claws are like our fingers, so anything we can climb, a grizzly bear can climb. If there are limbs to grab on to, you can get up there and so can a grizzly. Grizzlies would have a little bit of trouble climbing a telephone pole. But black bears have those nice, curved claws; they can scurry up a telephone pole.

Oyler: Another question we get is about bear spray. “Doesn't it just make the bear angrier?”

Jonkel: I always like to correlate bear spray to being a skunk. It's been working great for skunks. And when you get sprayed by a skunk, sure you're angry. But it shuts you down. My first reaction was just to get the heck out of there and go right to some water and start washing my eyes out. The dog I was with also got sprayed, and both of us ran down to the river and we were washing our faces, trying to get it out of our eyes. So, the bears that I have sprayed, can't believe it's happening. The next thing you know, they climb up a tree or they bolt, and they're just trying to get their eyes clear. So, it's a very effective tool. And I'm sure nobody likes to be sprayed. They get angry, but it shuts them down. It's horrible, a horrible experience.

Bear Aware Month

September is Bear Aware Month. To find an event near you, go to fwp.mt.gov/bear-aware/events.