Kodiak Bear Facts

As with many larger animals the Kodiak bear has been falsely labeled as a vicious predator who will hunt down humans on sight. There have been many alleged bear attacks that were either pure fiction made up to scare listeners or misinterpretations. In reality most Kodiak bears are quite shy when it comes to humans and will generally avoid interaction with our species when they can help it. They’re thought to be fairly intelligent on the whole, and so different bears will react differently to the same situation.

That said there are occasional bear attacks that result from poor decision making or just bad planning on the part of humans. Kodiak bears, though skittish around humans, can be attracted by a range of scents normally eminating from human food or from recent kills made by hunters. Once drawn in the bears may be startled or enraged by the humans they find. How the bear reacts next will depend largely on how the human reacts.

Luckily there are very few recorded fatal encounters with Kodiak bears, with the majority of encounters consisting of close yet harmless brushes or minor to occasionally major injuries. The last fatal incident happened in 1999 when an Anchorage hunter was mauled and left for dead by a Kodiak; before that there hadn’t been a killing from a Kodiak since 1921. As long as visitors know how to treat the bears and are careful how they tread through the woods there isn’t much to fear.