I've been around bears, particularly black bears most of my life and every one I ever bumped into took off like a shot, with the exception of one in AK! That's not to say that I'm not cautious around them....plenty of people killed by black bears and the experts say that when a black bear attacks, it's usually with the intent to eat!
When I graduated from HS, I worked in a remote USFS Ranger District. The area was lousy with bears and at the time, the usual for a remote ranger station, was to have a garbage pit. There happened to be two good sized fir trees close together right next to the pit. We got ahold of some 2x4" boards cut them to length and nailed them to the trees for a ladder and built a small platform about 20' up.
One evening I thought for entertainment I'd climb up to the viewing platform to view the bears. As the evening progressed more bears came into the pit and were rooting around in the garbage....great entertainment! I don't remember how many there were, but must have been 8-10 bears and then it dawned on me, it was starting to get dark and here I was sitting on a platform 20 or so feet above 8-10 feeding bears. I certainly didn't want to spend the night on the platform and I didn't want to climb down with all those bears. What to do???
Anyway, I had to take a leak and had held it about as long as I could. I went ahead and drained myself from the platform. When the urine wafted down to the bears level they scattered like a covey of quail! I can still see them scrambling in my minds eye! When all clear, I beat cheeks down the ladder and hurried back to the bunkhouse.
