Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
I really want to ride this bikeway sometime soon. Can anybody tell me the ratio of riders who have been eaten by bears to those that haven't?
(Seriously, I've got this thing about taking my wife on a mountainous trail like this and having to outride her to save my own ass.)
0 mauled to none ever mauled. NY has black bears which means, unless you provoke them or they happen to wander by with cubs they have zero interest in you. If there's cubs they'll want to chase you away but stop at a short distance to stay within a protective range of the cubs. Carry some halt, will work on black bears but dogs could be a bigger issue. Had bears living in the backyard of my last house, I had a big backyard, and had greater issues with the bobcats which would run through the yard and kill rabbits along the field lines, then I did with bears which never came within sight. The property backed up to a natural area that ended at lake ontario, and the game cameras that were used by the conservation officers recorded multiple bears, they're really not a concern. Now if mountain lions come back, you might have an issue.