Why I carry a gun when I go collecting....

Among the many other dangers of collecting in the wilderness of British Columbia (cliffs, injuries, unhappy locals, etc)
I have to keep an eye out for unwelcome wildlife. This photo gets to the point. This one was following the gentleman while
he was working. I am not a hunter, and would not like to see any magnificent creature such as this killed for sport, but
when they are looking at you as food, self defense is a very acceptable reason.
As a point of reference, the gentleman in the photo is 6' and 220lbs...

Do any other collectors out there have to keep alert for dangerous wildlife while collecting?

Thanks,
Greg

There was a Guru; he was very learned and wise. He had an ashram, and many disciples used to live with him. He always talked about God, the God is present in every living form, he is there in every living animal, in every human being so everyone should respect everyone else. He taught compassion and love for all.

One of his young disciples, who was very devoted to his Guru decided to follow his teachings. One day he went out of the ashram with his friends to purchase few things from market, suddenly, they could hear loud noises and a great deal of commotion coming from outside. The noise grew louder and they could hear that people were running and shouting. They saw that a huge elephant had gotten loose and was coming through town, destroying buildings and trampling people in its path. The man who was riding the mad elephant was trying to shout and warn people to get away as the animal could harm them. An angry elephant is certainly a force to be reckoned with and people were appropriately frightened. People started to run in all directions. But the young disciple remembered his Guru’s teachings that the elephant has the same God in him and there is nothing to fear. So he stood there, his friends tried to take him away but he refused and stayed there, the man who was riding the elephant also cried and asked the Young boy to get away but the boy stood there. Finally the elephant picked up the young boy and smashed him on the floor.

The boy was rushed to the ashram where his Guru treated him with herbs, after few hours the boy became conscious. When he recovered he asked his Guru why the God in elephant did this to him. The wise Guru replied, “O My Dear child, though there is God in elephant, the God in the man riding the animal tried to tell you to move away, and you did not respect the God in man riding the elephant and you adamantly stayed there disrespecting God so unfortunately you were punished by elephant.”

Traditional Indian Story talking about practical considerations for compassion and divine love.

The truth is God. But the God made practical world with laws, and we should respect the laws of practical world.

Gandhar Mandlik (Dharmachandra)

Well, when digging in Greece we often found little scorpions and poisonous centipedes, sometimes horned vipers (only 2 feet long), but nothing that could eat me up.
Wild boars may be met in german forests, but they always try to avoid a direct confrontation and go their way.
And the swiss mountains are safe regarding wildlife.

Addicted to high alpine mountain minerals...

Christian Bracke

Currently I live in Spain and besides being surprised by a hare jumping out of a bush there have been nothing alarming. A few years back I used to live in Venezuela and when was young I was into speleology. In one opportunity we found the skeleton of a jaguar (about two meters long) in a cave, while walking in the surroundings we sense an acrid smell of urine. Since the terrain was a bit too steep for having cows around, we decided to finish with the cave exploration and walk away.

Wild animals have developed extremely good senses of smell. Thus the use of pepper sprays are very efficient (also at a safe distance depending on the direction of the wind) and is often carried in arctic parts of the Norwegian territories around Spitsbergen to scare off polar bears. An animal temporaryly blinded with pepper spray is less likely to attack you than an animal just maimed with a poor shot. Even if it is contrary to American traditions, using a gun is not allways the best way to stave off dangers.

Bear spray will work, Knut, unless that bear happens to be a macho Latino Polar Bear!
They, for whatever reason, will just stand there licking their chops and motioning with their paws to signalling you to "bring it on...bring it on, I like spicy food"...or some such, so keep a lookout for those LPB's , cause for them, Knut, you probably will have to bring out that gun hidden behind your back to see if you can slow them down that way,, since they won't be expecting resistance after the pepper spray thing...if you catch my spray drift..

Just talk to Brad Wilson, an adventurer-gem-cutter-geologist guy from the hinterlands of Southeastern Ontario. He was up on Baffin Island I believe, sleeping on a remote beach area on some island last year when he heard some loud snuffling waking him rather abruptly from a sound sleep.Then this large, and obviously hungry Polar Bear, squashed the tent down onto him. He made a racket, which confused the bear for a moment , allowing him to get out of the squished tent, just in time to see the bear charging at him!!!
After a life shortening pause spent trying to release the safety on his gun, he let it have it right in the face, literally seconds away from him becoming its dinner...so, apparently, in Canada, we seem to have these Macho Polar Bears that require guns. No ashrams in Baffin to help revive one after an incident like that one...So, when he went into the local Inuit village, to apologize for shooting a protected animal and make a case for it being self defence, the locals asked him if he saw the other bears when he was packing up.,,,because they tend to hunt and travel in pods of 2 or three...DECISION MADE...GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE NOW, AND DON"T LOOK BACK>>

We really only have snakes to worry about in Australia (mind you they are mostly highly venomous and hard too see in the bush). Maybe crocodiles in northern australia, and wild boar but they dont like old mining areas like the snakes.

Ralph

I may be just a bit of a wimpish arachophobic here, but I always consider that provided you make a bit of noise and watch where you are putting your feet, most snakes will keep out of your way, but if I was going collecting in Australia and going to be rummaging about among the boulders in a mine dump or old quarry, I would be more concerned about red-backs or funnel-webs than snakes!

In Britain, hypothermia is a much greater threat than any of our wildlife, but when I lived in Kenya, I once discussed with my father which was the most dangerous animal to face up to. Lion? buffalo? rhino? hippopotamus? crocodile? cobra? shark? The conclusion was that (in terms of which had killed the most people) the most dangerous animal in Africa walked on two legs and carried a Kalashnikov AK47.

Pete N.

In Belgium we have , sadly enough, no wildlife left. Some boar maybe, but they
hardly show themselves. Biggest danger are the patrolling policemen. But the
pepperspray works fine for those

Greetings from Antwerp,

Eddy

I appreciate some of you guy's have lions, tigers, elephants, rhino's, hippo's, bloody big snakes , all types of bears, and not to mention all the other big cats and things. Here in Australia where I collect we have a little thing called the Bulldog Ant. There about an inch long and they sneak up on you from behind in there 100s. The pain when one of things stings you is intense, it's like being hit with a hammer only it burns. I was unlucky enough one day to be stung 18 times, these suckers can also hit you multiple times.

Then of course we also have the Koala. Extremely dangerous.

Craig.

Nothing much to fear in New Jersey although the Bear population is increasing and they use some of the abandoned mines we explore as Dens. In some of the deeper forests, the Goshawk can be found and is extremely protective of their nests. I have spoken to a couple of people who have nearly been scalped by an angry Goshawk.

As a lover of snakes, I don't fear them at all. I'm more concerned with Tics and poison ivy when I go wandering.

By the way Craig, there was some guy who decided to do a study on the pain generated by various insects, Bull Ant, Tarantula Hawk, Velvet Ant-a species of flightless wasp etc. I believe the Bull Ant generated the most pain or came in close second.

To quote Hawkeye Pierce for you Mash fans- I'll carry your bags, carry a tune-I'll hari kari if you show me how, but I won't carry a gun.LOL

Aha yes Craig, our bull ants are vicious critters. When I worked in Mount Wills, the geologist above me told me about the time when he was surveying old workings in the area with another man, who was working in overalls. Upon hearing some yelling from this other guy's direction, he turned around to see the bloke frantically stripping down to his jocks, the bull ants having crawled all through his clothing before beginning to bite. Apparently the man died a few weeks later of an unrelated heart issue. Mind you the horse/march flies up at Mount Wills aren't much fun either....

So you guys actually shoot the ants and spiders? Remind me not to go collecting with you!

Actually the Tasmanian Jack Jumper ant is recognised as one of the most dangerous ants in the world - lots of people have life-threatening anaphylactic reactions, and they are all too common. Bull ants and wasps give a shaper bite but it fades quickly and are seldom fatal. I've heard that bees probably kill more people than any other land animal here though. Redbacks and Trapdoor spiders mostly frequent urban areas not mines, but most old mines in Tassie have big Cave spiders - in span they get up to the size of your hand and are great to show visiting ladies, but are quite harmless.

Ralph

I'm guessing you have never done the Bull Dog Ant Boogie then Ralph. It's a dance that you would never forget.

Only joking Ralph, thought I'd better throw that in just in case my sense of humour isn't seen. It's happened once or twice in the past.

Craig.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2009 04:10PM by Craig Mercer.

The puma photo is fantastic!!! What an animal, but I myself, would not want to harm it unless I had to defend another human beeing.

I worry more about crazy people when I am out in the "boonies", especially in some regions where weapons and drugs are common.

There are some mines on my agenda to visit where my wife asks me NOT to go because of this, and I would only go alone there.
I always have respect for people, their traditions and do not impose my own cultural package.

My experience so far has never been bad, although I have had very dangerous encounters. Only time I know for sure I was shot at was in a telephone booth in Flagstaff, Arizona! (missed by a few centimeters) and by speaking in differnt pitch voices (and languages) I managed to scare of three huge guyes while staying alone i the last house in the village at a mine in the Urals in january 1993. The village had during the previous year experienced some 100 murders among a population of only 4000, that was more per month than the country of Sweden per yaer at the time (9 million inhabitants). The miners had not received salary since my last visit in June 1992 and everyone, knew that last time they had received salary only because I had bought the mining companies stock of crystals!

The period 1990-1997 was very dangerous travelling alone in Urals and Siberia, especially not knowing a word in Russian, but beeing crazily in love with their wonderful minerals!

Most of my collecting is done in prime mountain lion and black bear country. COLORADO! The only encounter I have had has been with a fox. It followed me for a couple of miles. It wasn't afraid of me, even when I threw rocks at it. It would just dodge them. It certainly is an experience to be out in the woods by yourself and encounter nature and having to commit to its laws.

Rudy

As I live in Scotland and tend to do all my collecting in the summer months (OK I'm a wimp in cold weather, I admit it), I would really like to invest in a self-loading rapid-fire midge gun.
I've been mauled way too many times by those savage little predators!
This year it's personal.

Gordon

I've seen many, many black/brown bears in my collecting trips around Canada and seldom worry about them.They, generally, are afraid of us and run away, quickly when they get our scent.

The only times that I have been worried about bears is in BC or in the Arctic. In BC, I really worried about grizzly bears since they don't always stay away and sometimes they can be pretty agressive. I have recurring nightmares about polar bears. They are eating machines and we are JUST as much food to them as a seal. I can only imaging Brad's thoughts and feelings when he was attacked last summer.

Yes, we heard the story from Brad in Munich -- really scary. And when the bear died, it fell directly on his tent and sleeping bag and so he could get few of his things out. He says the thing that saved him, was his long ingrained habit of keeping only a flashlight and gun on one side of the tent nearest the door (and everything else on the other side) so that he'd know where it was even in the dark.

Brad says the bear was actually a small, young polar bear -- but even a small polar bear stands about 8 feet! Scary!

I own guns but I don't usually carry them collecting but here in New York we have excessive coyote population and I have been followed by packs of them while out fishing the local river so I have considered carrying one. but long guns tend to be too heavy to carry while carrying tools and black bear generally stay away