Scary Bear Attacks Podcast

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the nearly impenetrable hardwood forests of the Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. The landscape here was shaped by untold eons of glacial activity leaving behind rolling landscapes, small cliffs and rich soils. Beavers bob along in the lakes and ponds as they chew branches to build their lodges. The dense forests of Sugar Maple, Hemlock and Yellow Birch hide moose and whitetail deer and the common predators of the area are wolves and black bear. It is this setting that today’s episode takes place.

In May, 1978, 18 year old Richard Rhindress and his 16 year old brother, William invited 12 year old George Halfkenny and his 14 year old brother Mark out for a great day on the lake fishing at Radiant Lake. The early summer sun bounced off the ripples confirming its name.

The boys spent the morning running up and down the lake shore, casting their bait into promising fishing holes and laughing together. Their campfire kept them warm as the summer sun heated the day and lit up the beautiful green foliage.

The fish were hungry and big and the boys ran their stringer through the gills of each of the fish they caught, then ran off to catch the next one.

As the day wore on and the afternoon faded, there was a very subtle shift in the shadows. From the dense brush, a large black bear watched the young men laugh and holler while they fished. Being an amazing ambush predator, well camouflaged for stalking the dark shadows of thick forests, the bear no doubt analyzed every approach alley to sneak upon the boys and still remain concealed.

The boys had spread out a bit as the evening approached and George was hidden around a bend in the shoreline. The visual contact the boys had maintained all day had relaxed a bit and the fun had reduced their watchfulness. George quietly readied his hook for another cast into the clear, cold waters but was unaware that he had become the object of a hungry visitor's fascination.

As George cast his bait then waited impatiently for a bite the large black bear slipped silently through the growing shadows to within a few yards of him. The leaves on the forest floor were several months old and had decomposed through a freezing winter which robbed them of their crunch and rustling. The bear's approach was virtually silent to the unaware young fisherman. In a blinding ambush from behind the boy, the bear quickly broke his neck and ended his life and terror.

With George’s death, his stretch of the shore was eerily silent. Mark and William were a little ways away, but started to grow concerned when they hadn’t heard from George for a while. The two boys began calling his name but received no answer. It seemed possible he was a little farther away than they thought so they continued to yell, louder this time.

After an extended bout of yelling and hollering the boys decided to investigate George’s whereabouts. They made their way along the shoreline for a while, but couldn’t find a trace of George.

Unbeknownst to the young men, the bear undoubtedly heard their voices and listened as they approached George’s body, now being claimed as his food. The bear slipped into the shadows toward the boys to intercept them while they were unaware.

George’s brother Mark began walking a worn trail away from the shoreline to investigate, in an attempt to find any sign of his brother. As he delved deeper into the forest the light faded and bushes closed in around the trail. The bear ambushed him quickly, in a similar way it did George, and broke his neck. His death was quick and merciful. The bear now had two dead bodies from which to feed, but the horror wasn’t over.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us back to the Shoshone Forest to the Bobcat-Houlihan Trailhead about 28 miles southwest of Cody, Wyoming and 24 miles east of the Yellowstone National Park boundary. If this area sounds familiar, our last two episodes were set there. The broad valley of the south fork of the Shoshone River rises around 1500 ft to the mesa’s and steep mountains to the north. When I think of grizzly bears I think of remote forests and rugged peaks, but this area features cliffs and sage brush. Not exactly grizzly territory, but then again, if they were predictable there wouldn’t be many attacks. Kendal Cummings and Brady Lowry were teammates on the wrestling team at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. Together with their fellow teammates and friends, Orrin Jackson and August Harrison, the young men decided to go shed hunting. Now, Kendal was a sophomore at the college and was from Evanston, Wyoming. Lowry was a 2 time state champion from Cedar City, Utah, where his father coached him. Hunting sheds is a fun way to get outside and is enjoyed by people throughout the continent. In the depth of winter, male deer and elk will drop their antlers to begin growing new ones to defend their breeding rights over females. When the antlers drop to the ground they continue a cycle of nutrient circulation providing calcium to mice, squirrels and soils in the area. The boys weren’t thinking about all of that though, as they hiked the incline above where they parked their vehicle at the trailhead parking lot, after they had completed Saturday morning wrestling practice. They just wanted to go find some cool sheds and enjoy the outdoors together. On October 17th, 2022 the four young men hiked about five miles up the trail packing a can of bear spray each and a firearm.he skin as his hand uselessly hung connected only by the flesh.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the old west setting of the high canyons and mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. There was a Spanish settlement there by the name of Colonia Pacheco. This area comprises three distinct geographical areas. An extinct volcano named Cerro Mohinora is the highest mountain in the Sierra Madre Occidental ranges which makes up ⅓ of the area. The rest is plains and desert. The animal life includes While tailed deer, wolves, bears and cougars plus smaller animals like bats, foxes and raccoons.The native plants include Lechuguilla, Mesquite, Guayule and ocotillo. The elevation averages around a mile high which is the same as Denver, Colorado, back in the states. At the time the state of Chihuahua had 18279 people and 97,000 square miles meant there were only 5 people per square mile. That leaves plenty of room for big predators to roam, like Brown Bears.

George and Hyrum Naegle were brothers and in the early summer of 1892 they were helping out on one of their family's many ranches. They were Mormon settlers pushed into Mexico after they were chased out of Missouri in the US. The ranchers had been experiencing a rash of calf and colt predations and the area was loaded with plenty of culprits. They had estimated a $300 loss so far this spring, and in those days, that amounted to several thousands of dollars.

On the Saturday before the day in question, Hyrum had been out hunting down predators by himself. He came home and told George and the others that he had run into a really big brown bear, also called a grizzly bear. The two brothers decided they would go get that bear on Monday.

They headed out to the area, on Monday, to where the bear was spotted and split up to search for him. They would regularly meet back up and discuss the plentiful sign and tracks in the area. They also found several carcasses of their calves consumed by the bear with track evidence present.

By Wednesday, June 22nd, 1892, they decided to hunt along the Gavilan River and pull all of their cattle from the area to ensure their safety. The brothers split up for a while and found some of their herd, and headed them down a small canyon. As they came out onto the side of the hill, Hyrum spotted the big brown bear again. He yelled out “hey there it is over on the point!”. The brothers dismounted their horses and grabbed their rifles. Hyrum shot a 44 Winchester lever action rifle and George shot a 45 Marlin.

Hyrum opened up the shooting and hit the bear in the vitals, followed by a good shot by George. The brothers continued to fire several more shots and were certain they were hitting the bear, but it continued to walk along the bottom of the canyon. The bear headed up the other side of the canyon and George sent one more bullet in his direction. That bullet hit pay dirt and sent the massive bear tumbling back toward the bottom of the canyon, bawling the entire way. George worked the action of his rifle and managed to jam one bullet into the backside of another. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife and beagan unjamming his rifle.

The bear lay motionless on the ground for a few moments, but quickly struggled to his feet and crawled back up the hill about 30 yards to an oak tree, where he collapsed again.

Hyrum hollered “that got him!, let’s leave our horses and take him on foot!” and immediately began to pursue the bear. George had fired all three of his cartridges and was still working on clearing his last jammed cartridge, so he lagged behind by several minutes. George yelled at Hyrum not to follow so close to the bears trail as the men were now equally placed on opposite sides of the canyon.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the remote and rugged mountains just north of Yellowstone National Park in southwest Montana. The granite peaks soar over valleys stuffed with plants and animals. Each season brings its own state of energy as fall season transitions to a slower time. Pines, fir trees and Aspen trees markout the horizon and willow, blueberry and buckbrush hug the lay of the land. In this area, elk, moose, deer, sheep and goats adorn the hillside and black and brown bear, cougar, wolves, coyotes and bobcat stalk the shadows.

In September of 1995 the Schaffer family were on their last day of muzzleloader hunting for elk on Horseshoe Mountain in Montana. None of the hunters have successfully harvested anything yet, but the group is optimistic today is their day. Horseshoe Mountain is a 10,000 foot peak that lies just north of Yellowstone National Park and is surrounded by remote and rugged wilderness.

As the hunters climb to the peak of the mountain they can see the distant clouds of a storm blowing in. They spread out a bit to push through the timber and agree to meet back at camp at the bottom of the mountain for dinner. Bram is at the far end of the line of hunters and is an energetic high school football star who just graduated from high school the prior spring. He heads over a nearby ridge and separates himself from the group trying to go into a different area than they had previously covered.

Bram is cocky and strong in his youth and quickly gets into some promising elk habitat. He starts to see some older elk sign but nothing promising. As he looks around for more recent tracks he notices that the birds are not singing and usual forest sounds are all quiet. He begins to feel a sense of impending disaster and he suddenly sees a huge grizzly bear speeding toward him, growling, drooling and popping her jaws as she surges toward him. Bram had inadvertently walked right between a sow grizzly bear and her cub as they were guarding a nearby elk carcass they were feeding on.

As the sow blurs toward him, Bram yells for her to stop and tries to get out her way thinking maybe she will run past him and leave him be. The sow sprints straight up to him and shoves him to his back with her paws like an NFL lineman.

The sow shreds Bram’s down jacket and blaze orange hunting vest as she digs her 2 ½ inch canines deeply into his shoulder. Then she paws him across the head and rips his scalp away from his skull. Bram decides he has to fight back and punches the bear in the nose and she chomps a hole through his thumb joint. It is a one sided fight at best but Bram has no choice and fights for his life.

Bram searches for his muzzleloader frantically and sees the enraged bear is now sitting on it. She puts her massive head on his lap and huffs her anger at him several times as if to tell him to stay away from her cub. She opens her enormous mouth filled with long yellow teeth and bites into Brams right thigh and lifts him off the ground. She thrashes her head around tossing him back and forth several times. When she does this she tears a huge chunk of his muscle and tissue from the bone and rips it down toward his knee a few inches. She then slams him to the ground and he plays dead.

The sow then walks a short distance away and continues to watch Bram, to see if he is still a danger to her and her cub. Bram tries to lay still and slowly grabs his muzzleloader and points it in the sows direction. She sees the movement and starts to return to finish him off, but Bram somehow squeezes off a shot. The bullet placement is lucky and drops her dead instantly.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Waugh Mountain just north of Cotopaxi, Colorado around 80 miles south of Denver. This particular part of the Pike and San Isabel National Forest displays steep and rugged mountains covered in pine and fir trees predominantly. There are pockets of willow, aspen and various berry bushes wherever water is present. The mountains are packed with deer and elk but authorities are uncertain about just how many black bears live in the state of Colorado.

Colin McClelland was from a very outdoorsy family. His father was a licensed outfitter in Colorado for 13 years and Colin was a lumberjack and camped on Waugh Mountain because he harvested timber from nearby timber stands. Colin had been working out of this area for several years and had had a rash of bear problems for the last three. He called the Colorado Division of Wildlife last year when a bear broke into his camper and consumed all of his food.

Lately, he had been having bears show up around his RV at night and scratch and sniff around his camp. Colin was smart enough to know not to leave anything that might attract a bear outside, but his camper was full of his own food as well, so he thought that is what must bring them back.

Colin didn’t know this but four nuisance black bears were sedated, ear tagged then relocated to Waugh Mountain since 1988. Now authorities know that one was run over and killed in the road, hunters killed 2 during hunting season, but one bear simply disappeared. This is the ideal situation for the wildlife management authorities. They don’t exactly like killing bears, even nuisance bears, as it is better to give them a second chance in a more remote area and allow nature to take its course. Any new entrant into prime bear territory will have to fit in with the established bear pecking order and may die if it doesn’t do that soon after being released.

Colin hadn’t been feeling well the last few days and was taking some pretty strong flu medicine to help him recover. Harvesting lodgepole pines was tiring work and being sick while doing it made it even more tiring.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Arviat, Nunavut Island, to a place called Sentry Island in Hudson Bay in northeast Canada. This wind swept land of rock and ice is a nearly inhospitable place but indigenous people have scraped out a living here for untold eons. When the ice melts in the summer, the natives can fish, but in the brutal winters, ice covers the water and land, and the humans frequently come face to face with the worlds largest bear species in competition for a common food source, seals. The polar bear is renowned as being one of the very few bear species who stalks human beings and considers them as a part of the ecosystem. There are no trees to climb here. The only avenues for escape are the open seas or to run across the open ground. The polar bear can run 35 miles per hour and swim for days on end, so neither of those options is viable. That leaves only yourself as a means of self defense, escape or protection.

Aaron Gibbons was a 31 year old father of 1 son and 3 daughters and a member of the Inuit community. He was known for being a great hunter and providing meat for needy members of the community as well as being a dedicated family man. His friends would describe him as having never lost his temper which is quite a feat with 4 young children.

On July 3rd, 2018 Aaron loaded up his 4 children and his .22 LR firearm into his boat. The group planned to go to Sentry Island to harvest bird eggs and have a fun family day. They departed Arviat, their 2500 person community, and motored the 10 miles to the island.

Aaron’s children, who are all elementary school age, piled off the boat and immediately started playing and running around. They were carefree with no stress in their lives, as the warmth of the summer energized them as it does to young people. Their dad secured the boat on the rocky shore and began making his way toward the kids.

Aaron instructed the kids on what to look for when gathering the eggs and how to avoid any problems with defensive bird parents and turned the vivacious kids loose! They ran around finding and seeking their seasonal delicacy as if Mother Nature sponsored an Easter Egg hunt a few months too late.

As the children amassed a growing collection of bird eggs, Aaron’s mind slipped into a bit of a mental recess, and reflection for a moment. He is hastily snapped out of it when he sees a huge white mass stealthily moving in the direction of his kids.

At this time of year, most polar bears are essentially doing what their brown bear cousins do in the winter, a sort of summer hibernation. They don’t find a den or bury themselves but they do lay around and wait for cooler temperatures to prevail while living off of the body fat they have amassed over the winter hunting period. The only polar bears that do not do this are the desperate, starving ones.

As the large white mass slowly morphs into what Aaron recognizes as a polar bear, Aaron knows he will have to intervene. This bear is not playing. It is not just curious. It is sneaking up on his daughter while she plays and gathers eggs.

Aaron heeds the demeanor of the polar bear. Its head is down and ears are back. It is moving slowly and watching the children as they dart from nest to nest. It carefully examines its most hidden approach avenues and slowly closes the distance between the children and himself.

Aaron knows this is a dire situation and immediately puts a plan of action into place. He orders his kids to run to the boat immediately as he runs toward them and gathers rocks. His 22 long rifle firearm is in his boat and that is in the other direction so Aaron utilizes the weapons he has on hand, baseball sized stones.

As the kids run toward the safety of the boat, the polar bear starts to quickly close the distance between them. Aaron intercepts their path and lob

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the remote and nearly untouched Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve with its iconic glaciers and fjords. The park is located in SouthEast Alaska along the coast and presents some of the most beautiful scenery on earth. The forests are lush and green with giant pines and all kinds of berry bushes. The bay itself lies to the east of where our events that we are discussing today occurred. This area is remote and rugged. Help is not close nor is it fast in response. Most people who travel to this area understand that if they get into trouble, they are on their own.

On September 10th, of 1976, 25 year old, Alan Precup arranged for his backpacking trip into the preserve through the visitors office. He was up from Illinois and had quickly embraced the Alaskan lifestyle. He established his travel route and timeline so they would know where he was planning on visiting and when he would be back. When September 13th rolled around Mr. Precup did not meet officials at his pick up time and location. A search was immediately launched to locate him.

On September 16th, a party including Charles Jackson, Leilani Vega, Peter Talbot and Colin Milmer were hiking into the White Thunder Ridge area just above Muir Inlet. The group had been briefed on Mr. Precup and agreed to keep an eye out for him. They were only planning on staying a single night and being picked up on the 17th, but it made them a little more comfortable to know there were search crews in the area. The group began setting up their camp to prepare their soup lunch and hot chocolate. The fresh air rejuvenated them as they embraced their short lived experience to the fullest.

It was a little after 11:30 AM when Talbot noticed a brown dot approaching in the distance along the lake. It could be a caribou, or maybe a moose. It didn’t look big enough to be a moose though. Slowly the brown dot approached and the friends discerned it was a smallish brown bear. The group decided to take some proactive measures to make sure this bear knew they were there and were not prey. They grabbed pots and pans and anything else and clanged it together and yelled to frighten the bear. Each time they did this, the bear would stop and look around, seemingly confused, but then continue heading toward them after a few seconds.

The party now decides that the safest thing they could do is to pack up their food items and hike over to a shelf of cliffs, in a respectful attempt at getting out of the bear's intended travel route. He would probably just walk right past them and go be a bear somewhere else.

They labored to the cliff tops and found trees to cache their food in. As they looked down upon their camp, they could see the bear trashing their tents and biting anything he could find with human scent. Then the bear dropped its nose, like a bloodhound, onto the group's trail. The bear sniffed along the exact path they used to get to the safety of the cliffs. They immediately decided they needed to make more space between them and the bear so they headed further away from camp along the cliff. They looked back at their food stash, expecting to see the bear pulling in their food bags, but the bear kept his nose to the ground and followed their trail. He wasn’t interested in the food cache, but the people.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the majestic Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the Navajo River. The San Juan Wilderness area is a rugged combination of forest and granite peaks ranging in elevation from around 8,000 ft to about 12,000 feet. The valleys flush with deer, elk, coyotes and black bear, but the ecological niche of the grizzly now goes unfilled. On the eve of September 23rd, 1979 Colorado native and hunting guide, Ed Wiseman slips quietly through the forest as the day of elk hunting winds down. Ed thinks of himself as a bit of a throwback mountain man who enjoys living as close to nature as he can get. That is why he enjoys archery hunting. It beckons to something primordial in his spirit. Mike Niederee is the 25 year old hunting partner of Ed and is about 300 yards from his hunting partner looking for an elk. The Kansan handles the steep terrain well and enjoys their time in the mountains. He glances ahead and sees what he thinks is a large black bear. The bear lifts its nose to the breeze and gets a good sniff of Mike and heads down the draw toward Ed. Ed hears a rustling in the bushes nearby. As he turns to take a good look at what is making the bushes shake so much, a 400 pound female grizzly erupts from the bush and steams toward him. He immediately recognizes her as a grizzly but knows they haven’t been observed in Colorado in over 27 years. The sow closes the short distance before Ed can do anything other than drop to the ground and pretend to be dead. This is what the textbooks and professionals say to do after all. He thuds to the ground but apparently this bear is not fooled by his acting performance. She immediately clamps her jaws on his right leg and bites over and over several times, tearing his pants, skin and flesh severely. Next, she bites into his right shoulder with her 2.5” canines puncturing tissue to the bone and creating massive wounds wherever she bites. Ed feels his flesh being torn and the pain is electrifying. When the sow continues the attack for more than a few seconds, he realizes he may need to fight for his life. As the rage of her attack continues Ed takes inventory of any possible weapons in his area. He is an avid bowhunter and does not carry a firearm and bear spray was still being developed. He looks to his left and sees his arrows, now knocked from his quiver, laying on the ground within arms reach. They are good and sharp from the time he spent sharpening before leaving camp this morning. Ed reaches over and grasps one of the aluminum arrows and in one fluid motion plunges it into the grizzlies neck like a long dagger. The arrow shaft breaks in two and blood sprays into his face. He hit paydirt with his first strike severing the sow's jugular vein. Unphased by the fatal wound to her neck, the grizzly continues to tear at him with her claws and bite him severely. Ed reaches up and removes the arrow shaft from her neck and plunges it into her chest just behind her leg. This blow strikes her in the heart, causing her to withdraw a short distance.

The year was 1924 and fur trapper Jess Sethington had decided to make his way up to the headwaters of the Unuk River without the companionship of another person. People venturing into the isolated backcountry of Alaska have an unwritten rule and that was to never go alone, but Jess didn’t heed that advice. He was very experienced after all, and his trip was not supposed to be long in duration. Jess didn’t return when scheduled and four of his woodsman friends began the tracking process. They located several of his campsites and then all signs of the trapper disappeared.

About nine years later, gold miners and brothers Jack and Bruce Johnstone, and their trusty dog Slasher, had decided to trek to the productive headwaters of The Unuk River. The labor of the day was exhausting yet rewarding as the remote area was largely untapped and begrudgingly yielding its gold in exchange for sweat and blood.

As the weary men finished up their dinner around the campfire, they heard a distant noise. A drawn out noise unlike anything the experienced outdoorsmen had ever heard. They knew the sounds of every animal in the wild and this noise was definitely strange to them. Slasher's ears perked up and he let out a low growl as he stared into the blackness beyond the light of the campfire. Their profiles glimmered in the fire glow as they listened and waited.

Suddenly the deep moan was closer and more definite. It haunted the darkness of the woods and made their hair stand on end. The waiting and listening only added to the tension. The men checked the actions on their firearms and added more firewood. The noise eventually waned and the miners retired to salvage what sleep they could for the night.

The next year, the brothers made the same treacherous journey and decided to explore an area called Sulfide Creek. In the canyon at the headwaters of the creek the men observed a giant brown bear on the far side. Upon seeing the men, the bear made a line straight toward them. Jack immediately emptied his rifle into the charging bruin, but the bear made it across the raging creek and lifted itself onto the bank, despite an obviously broken back. Jack then pulled his sidearm and completely emptied the click into the bear just before it slipped on the bank and tumbled into the raging current to be swept away. Upon returning downstream to their boat, the men found the oars splintered and their boat with a gaping hole in the hull. All of this damage was apparently done by a bear.

The Johnstone brothers returned the next year and pitched a temporary camp in a flat area and started setting up their sleeping arrangements. In the middle of the night Jack was awakened to see a gigantic dark shape silently approach him while in his sleeping bag. He slowly reached for his rifle but Slasher flashed to their defense. The dog and bear hastily chased each other into the bush surrounded by a cacophonous eruption of barking, growling and gravel and bushes snapping.

Later in the fall of the same year the men investigated the river shore near the camp and found it strewn with partially consumed salmon carcasses and bear skat and tracks. The previous night they were stirred from slumber by the now familiar and eerie groaning noises which faded as the animal departed the area. The brothers went to examine a discovered quartz deposit near their camp. As they returned to camp Slasher raced into the bushes immediately behind where they had just spent a considerable amount of time examining the quart deposit. They could not see the bear but heard the growling and saw the bushes thrashing as the bear and Slasher confronted each other. Immediately following the incident the familiar groaning sound started up once again as the bear was persuaded to leave. The brothers had to seriously consider the possibility that the bear had been silently lying in ambush for them to get within striking distance.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain in Central California. The Sierra Nevada’s are one of the highest and most prestigious mountain ranges in the world and serve as the spine of California running from the Mexican border all the way to around the Oregon border. The giant granite peaks seem to touch the sky and host hundreds of miles of largely uninterrupted fur and pine forests. At the time of our incident there were no highways crossing the high mountain passes and assistance was often too far away to help.

John Adams was born in 1812 in Medway, Massachusetts and made his way to California when he was 37 years old after his shoe business failed due to fire. He left his family and made his way to the wilds of California to become a trapper, miner and hunter. Having nearly died from 2 illnesses during his trek he arrived in California in mid December.

He utilized his knowledge gained as an animal trainer and hunter in New England to make his own buckskins, moccasins, harness, saddles and snowshoes and with help from the Miwok Indians built a cabin and stable to winter over.

In 1853 he navigated around 1200 miles on one of his hunting and trapping expeditions clear up to the eastern portion of the Washington Territory. While out on an excursion he discovered a female yearling cub and quickly caught her. He moonlighted as an animal trainer and would sometimes catch animals and sell them to circuses or other menageries. He named her Lady Washington. Incredibly he eventually tamed Lady Washington and she became his constant sidekick. He even rode on her back and she cuddled him in freezing conditions keeping him warm. Later on, Lady Washington would have a tryst in the Rocky Mountains and have a cub Adams would name General Freemont.

A year later Grizzly, as he came to be known, pulled two 2 week old cubs from a grizzly sows den while she hibernated in the Yosemite Valley. He raised the cubs himself and one of them stuck around long enough to be named Ben, after Benjamin Franklin. Adams and Ben were quickly inseparable and Ben would follow Adamas anywhere he went.

The odd couple were once traveling through the Sierra Nevadas and came across a sow with three cubs. This sow was first of all offended that there was a man nearby, and compounding her offense, a boar bear to boot. The sow rushed Adams and quickly swatted his rifle out of his hands, with her left paw, before he had a chance to fire. Then with her right paw knocked him flailing landing face down. She then dug her huge canines into the flesh on his back and tore flesh, buckskin and flannel shirt from his body. Just in the nick of time, the yearling Ben, joined the fight and chomped onto her haunches. She spun around and dug her teeth into Ben's skull, blinding him in one of his eyes. Then she used her paws to crush him into the ground, while she brutally bit into his shoulder to lift him off the ground and shake him violently back and forth. The wounded Adams had the luxury of watching the two bears square off but the heartbreak of watching his best friend Ben be wounded and beaten. By then the man had gathered himself enough to lift his rifle and drive a bullet home through the sow's heart, stopping the brutality for once and for all. Ben healled eventually and the two continued on with their life in the woods. The record does not indicate what became of her three cubs but I assume Adams merged them into his menagere.