EISPIRATEN

Shot this video this morning (2008-08-17) about 7am. The bear and I mutually surprised each other, and he/she hid behind a bush about 20 feet away down the hillside. This gave me time to get my camera out which caused it to run away to the other side of the canyon before I could get video rolling.



First attempt at embedding a video. It's about 40 Mb. Let me know if there are any issues with viewing this and there's a 50-50 chance I'll know what to do about it!

awesome! where was this?

40mb? What type of file is it?

No problems here, views just dandy.

Nice VIDEO!
I totally understand that bear running away from HikeUp. I did too!

TacoDelRio wrote:40mb? What type of file is it?

No problems here, views just dandy.

It's an AVI file made with my Canon SD1000 point and shoot.

- standard setting (i.e. not "fast frame rate" nor "compact", whatever that means)
- 30 fps
- 640x480
- I was using the 12x zoom - the dude was fast and was a long way away in no time!

Any suggestions on reducing the file size? What do you people use?

Picture taken before I switched to video...

AVI files are big. I don't know if you can change that.

Canon cameras only record in AVI so you can't select a more compressed format within the camera. If you really need to reduce the file size, try reducing the frame size to 320x240 or the frame rate to 15 fps (but then it becomes choppy). Normally I'd only reduce these settings if I knew I was running out memory and I needed to get this video of say Bigfoot in the clearing up ahead.

It looks like Flickr resizes the video and compresses it into some sort of flash format so that's why it plays back smoothly. If you don't mind the time it takes to upload the large AVI file then I'd just keep doing that. If it does bother you then you'd have to re-encode the video to a more compressed format like an WMV, MPEG, etc. You can use Windows Movie Maker to do this or one of several free transcoders like VirtualDub (although some might have problems reading AVI files from Canon cameras). The formats that Flickr accepts are:

* AVI (Proprietary codecs may not work)
* WMV
* MOV (AVID or other proprietary codecs may not work)
* MPEG (1, 2, and 4)
* 3gp

The video will probably still be converted again to a Flash format so you'll lose some quality versus uploading the original AVI file.

So where was it? I'm jealous. I've only seen a few deer in the SGW.

Thanks Tim...great info. I briefly looked at the user manual ( ) and figured out I was stuck with AVI. I can live with it!

When is bear hunting season?

HikeUp wrote: When is bear hunting season?

Why do you ask? Think it is about the same as deer season.

Cool video and photo, looks pretty good sized.

406 wrote:Why do you ask? Think it is about the same as deer season.

I've got a couple of hikes involving cross-country travel planned and I don't want to do them during hunting season. I'll stick to main trails during hunting season. I thought bear and deer seasons were similar times of year but seeing this bear and vaguely remembering a post about someone recently seeing bear hunters on the Bear Flat trail to Baldy got me thinking.

Another thought was that I'm not in the business of pinpointing bear locations for hunters...make 'em work for it! Although how useful is an animal sighting to a hunter? Everyone knows they can be found in the mountains! How long does a bear stay in one general area? Do they generally stay in one canyon for a matter of days or what? Not against hunting....just not paid enough to give 'em tips .

Funyan005 wrote:So where was it? I'm jealous. I've only seen a few deer in the SGW.

He doesn't remember.

It's not a secret. The answer is 1 click away.

No opinions on the hunter issue?

Don't bother informing them. I used to hunt (not for bear), but bears have legs, so the information is already obsolete.

Just kidding.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry!?

*head explodes*

Talk about head exploding...I waded through the dfg website and think I figured it out. I could be completely wrong so be warned.

2008
Bear Archery season: 8/16 thru 9/28 (see pdf 1)
Deer Archery season: 9/6 thru 9/28 (see pdf 2)
Bear & Deer General Season: 10/11 thru 11/9 (see pdf 1 & 2)
Additional Deer season: 11/15 thru 11/23 (I think this means kids with guns accompanied by an adult) (see pdf 2)

This is for Zone D11 (San Gabriel's - basically) (see pdf 2).

references:
pdf 1
pdf 2

edit 2008-08-26: bear season goes until December 28th or 1700 reported kills.

HikeUp wrote: No opinions on the hunter issue?

I'm very against hunting bears, wolfs, coyotes, lions, ect, but very for hunting things lower down the food chain as long as they are not endangered.

I'd love to see a bear when I hike. I've found tracks and scat numerous times. I've found the same for Mountain Lions too.

406 wrote:

HikeUp wrote: No opinions on the hunter issue?

I'm very against hunting bears, wolfs, coyotes, lions, ect, but very for hunting things lower down the food chain as long as they are not endangered.

Coyotes, Bears, Wolves, and Mountain Lions are far from being endangered. There has been an all out war on Coyotes for the last 40 years, and they have managed just fine. Coyotes are one of the primary killers of the endangered Kit Fox. Mtn Lions have done a great job of exterminating most of the endangered Bighorn Sheep.

If I had a ranch, I'd probably have a fun time sitting on the roof with a beer and a 24" heavy barrel upper'd AR15. 8)

TacoDelRio wrote:If I had a ranch, I'd probably have a fun time sitting on the roof with a beer and a 24" heavy barrel upper'd AR15. 8)

Is that what they call a pipe dream? (pipe being the bang bang gun thing that guides the bullet?)

Badum CHING

Nah, coyotes are known as "varmints", and hunted as such.

It's a shame they're considered as such. I love seeing them around Chino Hills, it's great to see the wild life even looking out my window. Though, we used to have rabbits that lived in our front yard, not anymore. Tehe.

For ranchers, they can be a major problem. I don't have a problem with them otherwise.