We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
You can address a curious bear with some confidence when you are a deer hunter and have a firearm on your lap. I'd guess the bear smelled the hunter's breakfast burrito.
Bears always remind me of dogs in their facial expressions. You can just see the thought process going on in their ursine heads. I bet the hunter was in full camo, head to foot, and the bear really never figured out what he really was.
If I'm sitting in a tree stand with a .30 Magnum rifle, I'm about in the same mode that the guy filming it was. I'm doing my best to keep from laughing my posterior off and letting things progress as they will.
If I'm up there with a Compound Bow, though? I'd have been nervous. OTOH, I usually have a 1911 or some-such handgun on me, so I would not have been too nervous. But I'd have done something to scare him off before he got that far up, if I didn't have a real rifle in hand.
YMMV, but anything that even approaches being as mean as I am doesn't get that close unless I have a way of stopping it in hand.
I'd have had him covered when he started up the ladder, and would have never looked away from the sight picture until he got back down.
Paranoids have enemies too, and one forgets that at one's own peril, any time of any day.
About a year ago, a news paper report of a hunter's killing of a bear being ruled self defense caught my eye. It happened in KY near the TN border. Seems a the hunter waited until the bear was right out side his deer blind before he shot. The bold part was it was muzzleloader season. Talk about old school. Not to mention making the first shot count.
A young man was bow hunting deer in a tree stand near my home earlier this season, and a curious bear cub climbed up his tree. He pushed the cub back down the trunk, but the cub once again ascended. His efforts to push the cub back down caught the attention of the cub's now angry mother, who came up the trunk after him.
He repulsed her twice, but the third time his foot caught in the tree stand and he fell, dangling there with his ankle caught. The sow proceeded to maul him about the head and arms, until finally his foot came free and he fell from the tree stand, landing directly on the attacking sow. Fortunately for him she then departed the scene, and he was able to call for help.
After five long days in the hospital he was released, but will have some permanent disabilities, as well as some harrowing memories.
Whether I was shooting a rifle or a bow there is no way on earth I would have let that bear get that close . I would have shot him deader than a door nail before he touched the ladder. Black bears are to dangerous to mess with like that. As for Ohio I figure if you don`t tell they don`t know. That ole shoot, shovel and shut up thingy works for me in that kind of circumstance.
Bears have a better sense of smell than does a dog. The bear knew it was a human.
Black bears are not terribly ambitious creatures. This bear is clearly not starving, so taking on an alert human was simply too much work from the bear's perspective.