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Man armed with knife kills starving bear
Associated Press — Nov. 18, 2003
WILLIAMS LAKE, British Columbia — John Hirsch went toe-to-claw with a black
bear — and won.
Hirsch had only a 3 1/2-inch knife blade when he came across the bear in his
backyard in Williams Lake, about 190 miles northeast of Vancouver.
"He came out of nowhere," said Hirsch, 61, an avid hunter and outdoorsman.
"I can remember thinking that he's not stopping — he's coming," said Hirsch.
"I just didn't feel I had any place to go."
He was attacked Oct. 29 while checking on the 15 turkeys he and his wife,
Sharon, raise on their spread.
As the bear began to circle him, Hirsch faced it like a wrestler in a ring.
"It was like a knife fight that you'd see in an old-time Western," he said.
The bear swatted out at him, but each time it lunged, he managed to stab it.
"I couldn't tell you if the fight lasted three seconds or three minutes,"
Hirsch said.
Three stabs to the bear's chest and one to its neck finally did the bruin
in.
It stood about 5 foot 7 inches to Hirsch's 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 200
pounds, according to conservation officers who inspected it.
"I can say it sure looked smaller the next morning than it did during the
fight," said Hirsch.
The bear was in poor shape, suffering from a severed tongue and broken jaw,
the conservation officer said. Its stomach was empty and the bear had little
fat on it.
Hirsch, a retired electrical foreman at B.C. Hydro, suffered a scratch to
the top of his head and scratches to his back — and a shredded T-shirt.
As for the battle itself, Hirsch said it never occurred to him that he would
lose to the bear.
"I just felt that however long this took, I was going to come out OK," he
said. "I always felt that I was at least his equal."
Why are people bagging on a guy for defending his kid, bear, human, lion, tiger, you go after my kid and you are dead unless you kill me first.
It's not defending the kid. The kid was dead. This was revenge. On an animal. As if animals know what evil or hatred even are.
Oh he's real cool, fighting a different species.
Proves how many idiots live in this world, and why the human race is a general failure nowadays
Especially when the guy is clearly sympathetic and didn't want to actually KILL the bear.Why are people bagging on a guy for defending his kid, bear, human, lion, tiger, you go after my kid and you are dead unless you kill me first.
The argument that this is the bears territory is crap. Should bears be allowed to kill anyone who lives in the mountains? If I walk onto my nieghbors lawn and his dog kills me is it OK since it was his territory? If the bear attacked another wild animal and the other animal killed it there would be no issue, if humans are animals, what's the diff?
No, he's proving people that are from Ontario should be killed. Hey, I'm 50% from Ontario and 50% from British Columbia and am moving out west after university. So I'm exempt.What a rediculous, arrogant, foolish comment. You're proving that Canadians should be extinguished! Thanks a lot for making all my cousins and my godchildren look bad!![]()
This kid wasn't dead, he tried to stop the bear from taking the cooler.