An Alaskan hike turned into a terrifying test of survival after three hikers experienced a heart-pounding encounter with a grizzly bear.
The hikers rounded a corner and found themselves face-to-face with the bear, nicknamed “Scuba Sue,” while it was hunting for salmon along a narrow trail at the Anan Creek Wildlife Observatory in southeast Alaska.
Speaking on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” the trio detailed how they relied on crucial park ranger safety protocols to stay calm after finding themselves trapped on the path.
“We’d actually been watching bears, hoping that there were salmon coming up the river. We saw about four or five bears earlier. Those were black bears. And then coming back on the trail, we had an unexpected encounter,” Dr. Michelle Lynn Thaller said. “Right around the corner came this grizzly bear.”
Video captured from the scene shows the bear getting up close and personal with the hikers.
The group was forced to talk to the bear, while slowly backing away to allow room for it to pass on the path.
“Oh, [I] was definitely terrified. And then we remembered what the rangers told us, which was what you said, to be big, talk to the bear, keep it calm and get out of its way,” hiker Tanya Thompson said.
“There was no place where we met the bear to get off the path. So we had to back up a little bit in order to get off so she could run forward,” she added.
Hiker Tony Cutraro noted that the group had been briefed by park rangers before the hike, but they already knew they were in deep bear country and had seen evidence of them on the path.
After a few tense moments, the bear passed by the group and continued on its way.
Thaller noted that a delayed salmon run this year has left the local wildlife starving, raising the stakes of the encounter.
“Well, that was something that actually made me a little bit nervous because these bear are here to fish salmon. There’s going to be salmon running up the river and spawning and the salmon were not running yet,” Thaller said.
“And so, in years past we had seen salmon. They were eating salmon. The salmon were a bit later this year. And so these bears, they’re hungry. They’re waiting for the salmon to come,” she added.
The National Park Service has a few tips for hikers in these situations.
They advise hikers to identify themselves by talking calmly to the bear, so it knows they are human and not prey.
They also recommend remaining still and avoiding running away.
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