Bears dig vegetarians

Okay, so I'm getting a bad rap here as being a bear attractant. Two days ago my field partner left our last plot for our helicopter landing zone (LZ) while I stayed behind at the soil pit in the alders to fill it in. Our standard protocol is to be as vocal as possible to keep the bears away so as my field partner walked towards the LZ, I could hear him yell out, "Go away bear. Here I come!" The vegetarian is so dense in parts that the ferns and grass tower over our heads leaving little room for seeing anything, let alone our footing or potential bears, in front of us. Almost immediately after he left, a cub entered our plot about 15 feet away from me so I started shouting, "Go away bear!" My field partner, maybe 100 yards away, didn't say anything in response to me because he thought I was just making noise to keep the bears away. But when I yelled, "GO AWAY BEAR! NOW! SHOO! GO! WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" he got the clue. This bear would not budge. He just stood there. With pepper spray in one hand, and my fingers on the gun holster in the other, I packed up my belongings as quickly as possible and got out of there. On the other side of the alders I was met by my field partner holding his gun radioing the helicopter to pick us up.

This is a horrible picture but it gives you an idea of how tall the vegetation is. It was at least a foot over my head today.

Then again today, only moments after we were dropped off by the helicopter, I started digging a soil pit and my field partner says, "I think I just saw the ferns move in the forest". We were on a bluff surrounded by tall grass with a forest beneath us. The ferns moved again and then there was a loud CRACK. Sure enough, a bear was running in the brush beneath us, maybe 100 feet away. Wanting to get out of the tall grass to get a better vantage point of our potential attacker (we've had bears circle around and stalk us in the field before), I grabbed my bear spray and walked very quickly yelling in his direction to scare him away. Satisfied that the bear ran away, I walked back to the pit where my field partner was cowering in the tall grass holding his gun, "I know that if there's a bear approaching we're supposed to stand our ground but I don't think I've ever seen someone actually run after them like you did - I think that'll work just fine." We had two different helicopters circle around us to encourage them to stay away.

So now the running joke is that bears like vegetarians and no one wants me to be their tech because I will inevitably attract bears to us.