[Philmont] Black Bear Attack

In 1970 we were told of a bear attack that had occurred a couple of
nights before we arrived at a staff camp (can't remember which one).
As John LeBlanc has explained, the tents in those days were just
staked-out canvas tarps with a single pole and ties at the front. As
told to us by the camp staff involved, a bear stuck his head into one
of the tents looking for food and a scout took a flash picture of it.
The disoriented and enraged bear grabbed the scout in his sleeping bag
and drug him out of the tent, mauling him pretty badly. Several
staffers heard the screams and arrived with shovels in hand and hit the
bear on the nose with a shovel, driving it away. The scout lived but
took quite a few stitches to repair the damage (the number of stitches
increased as the summer progressed).

In those days, you saw a lot of bears at Philmont because the bear
procedures were not very good. The bears walked through camp at night,
sniffed and rooted around the tents, dug up buried food and grabbed
bear bags hanging from low branches. Getting out of your tent to pee
in the middle of the night could be terrifying, as my tentmate can
attest - a black bear walked right past him as was relieving himself.
It is amazing that there weren't more attacks.

Today's Philmont bear procedures are the best bear procedures practiced
anywhere. Make your scouts take them seriously. Because so few bears
are seen today, and teenagers generally consider themselves
buttetproof, it is easy for the crew to relax their concerns. It is
the advisors responsibility to make sure that every aspect of the bear
procedures are followed every night, no matter how tired everyone is.

Dan Preston
Louisville, KY
On Jun 19, 2007, at 7:05 PM, John LeBlanc wrote:

> Those are the ones we remember.
> -Nancy and Kevin
> ***************************
>  
> Nancy and Kevin,
>  
> You did not mention the one that took up his post in the apple tree at
> CHQ.  Wasn't that about 2001 or so?
>  
> John LeBlanc
>
> Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with
> Yahoo! FareChase.
Dan Preston
Preston Associates Architects

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Received on Wed Jun 20 10:53:38 2007