[pct-l] Just one statistic...

[mark v]

Andrea Dinsmore's link said that there have been 45 fatalities from bear attacks since 1900.  That's fewer than 1 fatality out of every 2 years.  If it's at all similar to the previous mountain lion research i did online, fewer than 5% of these bear/person fatalities involve hikers.  If that turns out to be true, we're talking about 1 hiker fatality from a bear attack every 40 years or so.  Adding mountain lions attacks to these statistics wouldn't increase them at all for the PCT, since there's never been a PCT hiker mountain lion attack fatality.  Ever.  Latest federal statistics i could find say that there are over 73 million hikers each year.  That means that one out of every 3 billion hikers gets fatally attacked by a bear.  Repeat:  ONE OUT OF THREE BILLION.

It got me curious about how many gun fatalities there have been in the wild, as a comparison.  There doesn't seem to be a source that combines all wilderness gun fatalities, but according to one group (all-creatures.org), there were 135  gun fatalities just from hunting alone in the years 2004 and 2005.  That's 67.5 per year, just from hunting gun accidents.  That means just under one out of a million hikers gets shot to death.  Well, not as good as 1 out of 3 billion, but i find that comforting nonetheless!

Those who choose to carry guns on the trail, you can feel safe, since it's doubtful you'll be the one out of 3 billion at risk for a fatal attack.  Please be sure you keep the rest of us safe by keeping your gun in your pack all the time.  No further comment.