Wild Animal Defense by @cahlen on 3Speak
While encounters with aggressive wild animals in the wilderness are rare, it's good to have something on you at all times which can be used to defend yourself. --- DONATE: CONTACT: SUBSCRIBE: GEAR ...
Tags: #animals #outdoors #camping #backpacking #survival #nature #travel #defense #technology
Hey everyone, Callan here, and back during my wilderness adventure a few weeks ago, I promised a couple people that I'd make a video talking about how I defend myself against potential animal attacks. Up where I was, the only thing I really had to worry about was bears. and moose, which moose I actually would be more afraid of than a bear, because they're extremely quick and can be aggressive, especially during the season that I was there, and they can be pretty hard to get away from, and they will basically knock you on the ground with their front feet and smash you, okay? So anyways, I wanted to have things with me, which would protect me, and so the things that I got were this BiperTech taser. Okay, so I'll just, you flip it on on the side here, and then you flip this little switch here, okay? And this isn't necessarily primarily for actually shocking the animal. It's mainly for the noise, so you may not be able to tell because of the audio processing on this video, but this is really loud, okay? And so I've had lots of success, and the last place that I was, I drove my bike around town. Many of the houses had very angry dogs, which were free to roam with streets, and I would have dogs chasing me, many of whom could run faster than my electric bike could go, which was like 20 miles per hour, okay? So in order to keep these dogs from grabbing onto my bike and pulling my bike over, which almost happened a few times, or biting on my heels, which happened multiple times, biting my leg, having something like this is really helpful because you just make this noise. and the dogs back away, you know, they freak out. They don't know what's going on. I mean, I don't know what's going on in their psychology, but dogs do not like this thing. And allegedly, it's the same for basically all wild animals, so bears, cougars, moose, I assume. Like I said, I haven't tested this stuff, but... basically having this in your pocket, it's not heavy, it'll fit in your pocket, it's easy to flip on, it's not going to accidentally turn on, because if you don't flip this switch up, then this won't turn it on, okay? So you're not going to shock yourself. And it's also a flashlight, okay? So, you know, this is one thing that you wouldn't have to bring, you can just bring this, and it charges it with USB, okay? So if I was just going to have one thing, it would probably be this, okay? and also it's helpful against humans if you're walking in the street and you're going to have trouble with humans. Because you can shock them, you just push it into them. The little prongs here make it so it's more likely to go through their clothes. And then if they actually try and grab this thing from you, it has these little strips here, and if they touch both of these strips, they're going to get shocked by that too, okay? So anyways, this is something super helpful. In my experience, I've had much success with dogs. And honestly, dogs are the worst animal out there because they have the highest rate of killing people than I think pretty much any other animal out there, okay? So the next thing I'm going to talk about is bear spray, or you could get pepper spray something smaller. But the nice thing about getting bear spray is that it's generally designed to travel a long ways, I think, like 20 to 30 feet away from you, which is what you want, because if an animal is much closer and then starts charging, you're not really going to have much time to react, okay? So the main idea here is you're setting up this big cloud. which they are going to walk into, and their, you know, sensitive noses are going to start freaking out. And you can watch lots of videos online of bears and various animals getting sprayed with this stuff, and they do not like to use it. And rangers up in Yellowstone, you can, there's plenty of videos of this as well. You know, they basically just, this is all that they take out there with them, and they're constantly having to deal with animals getting up in the road. Dangerous animals, like bears. with their baby cubs and all this type of stuff and their confidence level is extremely high with this stuff okay the main problem with it is that it is fairly heavy if you get a bear spray canister it's going to be big right and it's fairly bulky right so there's a lot of liquid in here and it's bulky and so you have to find some way to carry it and it won't necessarily always fit in your pocket and if it does it's gonna you know, protrude out. Another thing you have to be worried about with this stuff is that if it's windy and it's blowing back at you and you're spraying it out in front of you, it's going to blow back into your face and, you know, you're not going to enjoy that experience. So anyways, this also allegedly works with pretty much all animals including like mountain lions and things like that, okay? So you may be thinking, well, what about having a gun, okay? And there was a period of time where I basically carried that with me whenever I was in the wilderness, but there's various reasons why I decided to get rid of it, okay? So first of all, carrying a gun, they are very heavy, and also, if you're carrying ammo with you, it's even heavier. You know, depending on how much ammo you're carrying, that's a lot of weight, okay? So if you're carrying in your backpack or you're carrying it in your pockets or on a belt, you know, it's just kind of bulky and in the way. Okay, so that's one aspect. Another aspect is, you know, I'm often moving from state to state where the regulations, the laws about what you can do with a gun, or how you have to carry that gun in certain places, at certain times, basically goes all over the place, you know? For example, I was on my bike when I was in Colorado, and they have rules about if you're in a vehicle, then you can have it stashed in your vehicle, but as soon as you get out of your vehicle, it has to be locked in a safe in your vehicle, and it's like, well, I can't have a safe on my bike, and so I can, it's legal for me to be riding around on my bike, but as soon as I step off the bike, or if, like, the bike falls over, and I'm not on it anymore, now I'm breaking the law all of a sudden, you know, and you have to, like, look up every single state you go into, have all these idiosyncrasies, and you have to look it up, okay? So that was a huge annoyance for me. And then another problem is that when you're dealing with police, like police encounters and things like that, having a weapon with you is something, even if you're doing it legally, is something which is going to be used against you. And if you're in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, it can be used against you in a way which is going to put you in prison for long periods of time, okay? So I just didn't want to have to have that psychological worry of, am I, you know, doing something in this place that's going to get me in trouble, you know, even though it's really quite ridiculous, you know, like the bike thing, okay? And also, even if you're in a place where you can have a weapon and it doesn't really matter how you carry it, there's always stores, which that's not the case for, okay? So there's all kinds of stores which have policies where you can't do it. And so you're basically, if... For example, if you're on foot, you don't have a vehicle, there's not a place that you can put your weapon while you're going into the store, then you're basically barred from going into that store. And also, you're barred from going onto school properties, but you're barred from going to the post office, you're barred from going onto any, you know, federal land, except, like, you know, public land, like BLM or the National Forest, okay? So anyways, for those of you who are wondering about having a firearm, that's the reason I don't. But also, like, even if you do have one and you want to carry it with you, you know, a pistol isn't necessarily going to do whole much, all that much against the bear. And basically, it's a noise maker, and I've got a noise maker, okay? And if you're going to start shooting a bear, well, you better be a good shot of nowhere to shoot them, because if you're just, you know, putting holes in them... and hurting them, you're likely just getting their adrenaline up and getting them angry, which may make it a worse situation for you, okay? So if you're going to be shooting large animals like moose and bears and things like that, you're going to want something more like a rifle, okay, with very large bullets. Anyways, another option available to you is just carry a long stick with you. This isn't going to be, you know, as effective as the things that I was talking about earlier. But you can keep an animal off of you just by, you know, having to stick out in front of you. I mean, try it with a dog, right? If you put a dog, if you have a dog who's angry at you and you have a long stick, just put it out in front of them. and maybe even touch them with it. And it, like, kind of confuses animals. That's my experience anyways, okay? So just having something out in front of you, which has a really long reach, kind of makes them go, what is going on here? And if it gets to that point, you can start whacking them. It definitely works against dogs. You start whacking a dog in the face with a stick, and they're going to back off, okay? I can't speak for whether that's going to work for a bear. I kind of doubt it. Or a moose, I kind of doubt it. But, you know, It's better than having nothing. Okay. All right, so that's basically all I got to say on wild animal offense. I don't have a whole lot experience with wild animals having to defend myself. I have had a bear come right up to my tent, but basically what we did, we just stayed still and didn't do anything until it went away, okay? So, it's not really that common that you're going to have aggressive wild animals coming after you, but... it's good to have a plan and in case it does and have it on you and ready at all times because you never really know when that's going to happen, okay? So both of these things that I've talked about, they come with little things that will fit on a belt. So this is for the pepper spray, this will fit on a belt. This is for the taser. This tasers, like the second time I put it on, this thing broke off. And, you know, if you look on Amazon for this, it's the Viper Tech. I can't remember what model it is. Here's the serial number if you want to look that up. Can you see that? But anyways, their cases are crap, and everyone says they're crap, so you're probably going to find something else if you want to put it on your belt, or just keep it in your pocket, okay? So, anyways, that's my video on Wild Animal Defense. Hope that's useful to you, and I'll see you guys later.
@jacobtothe: I heard a wildlife photographer say the surefire way to never see any wild animals, and especially the big dramatic predators, is to carry an expensive camera with a big lens into the woods. The critters will vacate the area for miles. I do need to get some bear spray though. It's cheaper than a camera, and while I do carry a gun, I'd prefer to have other options as well.
@promete0sz: That electricity must hurt a lot 😱😱 replied to 2:25 on 3speak.tv