Speaking of bears, story is a little graphic:
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/story.html?id=6474783c-06b9-4671-9520-4b0a88447336
Bear mauls fisherman aboard boat in B.C.
Victim recovering in hospital
Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2008
VANCOUVER - A fisherman attacked in his boat by a black bear was recovering in hospital Wednesday night.
"The bear wanted him, he was going to eat him," said Bruce Miller, 40, who helped kill the bear. "The bear needed protein, and this guy was it."
Miller was on his boat in Port Renfrew, about 100 kilometres northwest of Victoria on Tuesday evening, when he saw the bear run up an adjacent jetty after swimming across the Jordan River and jump into 52-year-old Blain Pharis's boat.
The bear ignored the coho salmon that Pharis threw toward him and instead jumped Pharis.
Miller heard Pharis screaming, picked up his metre-long spiked gaff and dashed toward him.
"He was pinned on the floor, the bear had a good hold of him and was biting and shaking him," Miller said. "I figured he was dead in seconds."
Miller sunk his gaff with its five-inch spike into the bear's neck.
"It went right in and the bear still wouldn't let go."
Miller, a Victoria fishing guide, kept sinking the gaff into the bear's neck until another fisherman showed up with a gaff and joined in the fight.
But the bear kept hold of Pharis's shoulder.
Two other men showed up armed with a knife and a hammer.
"This bear was getting hit between the eyes with the hammer and it didn't flinch," Miller said.
A fifth man with a fishing knife began stabbing the bear in the neck.
But, Miller said, the bear "didn't let go until he was dead."
Pharis was able to walk off the boat and waited until an ambulance arrived 25 minutes later.
Pharis's friend Leslie Cheeseman said Pharis is doing "remarkably well" in Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
The attack left "lots of puncture wounds" on his body but "he is doing really good."
Cheeseman said Pharis, an employee at the Saltspring Island liquor store, had been fishing with a friend off Port Renfrew.
Conservation officer Gord Hitchcock said the bear at least 10 years old and weighing 80 kilograms was in poor health.
Since 1986, eight people in B.C. have been killed by black bears and 75 have been injured.
