BEAR BELLS AND HOG CALLING

Nowadays, it has become avant-garde for adventurers and hikers to wear bells on their backpacks and yell at the top of their voices when they're in bear country. Almost everyone believes that noise scares them, although there's not one bit of evidence or research to prove it. Who started this foolishness is a good question, but rest assured it was some would-be bear expert sorely lacking in common sense, outdoor skills, and respect for other wildlife.

Regardless of the different species, black bears, grizzlies, and polar bears hear sounds more or less like people, but their ears play second fiddle to their noses. More important, though, there's hardly a place left anymore where they don't hear humans every day--airplanes and helicopters, chainsaws, highway traffic, and freight trains, for example. To suppose that hearing "ting-a-ling" and "Hey, bear, hey, bear" frightens them is complete nonsense. Even in Alaska and the High Arctic, all that does is put them on full alert and gets them curious. Sneakiness and separation are the keys to bear safety, not noise making.

Native Americans coexisted with bears for millennia, but it wasn't because they wore tinkling bells and war danced through the woods. They survived because of their stealthy vigilance, which means they always stopped, looked, and listened before risking themselves on the trail ahead. Bears can't attack if they don't know you're there.