Health and Safety

Everyone should know some simple things to do that help you survive in the woods. Watch this humorous video to learn the basic steps for survival.

Hopefully, you will never have to use them, but it is a good idea to be prepared and to know what to do.

Here is another video on the subject of bears. Funny characters give some good tips on what to do if you encouter a bear or a bear attacks you.

This is not for kids who might get scared!

They used to say: "Fed bear is a dead bear". The truth is that bears love human food and once they develop a taste for it they loose natural fear of humans they will keep coming again and again. In this quest for our food they may become agressive and dangerous and the only solution is to take them down.

In this short presentation a representative from Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources shows how black bears can be re-conditioned to be afraid of humans. This project is still in its experimental stage, but shows a great promise.

Basically a  bear is first put to sleep and tags are attached to his ear and a part of his tooth is removed (to tell bear's age).

When he wakes up he has a toothache and a headache (from traquilizers) and then it is yelled at and hit, and rubber bullets are shot at it's rear end. Yes, it is very painful and scary, but does not really harm the bear. So now he is very afraid of humans and never comes back. At least this is the premise of this operation.

As we were told, the Bear Control unit had a great success with this approach so far, so the bear's life could be speared.

Good job!

Did you ever wonder how dangerous black bears really are and what to do to avoid bear encounter and even more importantly a bear attack? Are your kids afraid of bears?

Listen to the pros from Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

You will learn that bears:

• hide from people
   
• do not attack to kill
   
• how noise may scare them away
   
• what to do when attacked
   

This presentation was given by MNR representative to campers at Red Bay Park in August 2010. Black bears regularly visit park's garbage dump and are abundant on Bruce Peninsula.

This is another video about ticks. This time Happy Camper shows you how to remove a tick already attached to you.

Read more about ticks here:Ticks and Camping

If you are planning on any backcountry  camping, hiking or backpacking, you'd better learn how to keep your food from the reach of bears, also known as "bear bagging".

Happy Camper, Kevin Callan, will show you how.

This is a pretty funny video and it is suitable for kids. It shows you how bears get addicted to human food and come back to feed again and again.

It is up to us campers to put our food and garbage away from bear's reach. Otherwise it may endanger other campers, since bears loose their natural fear of humans, and the bear may need to be destroyed.

As they say: "Fed bear is a dead bear".

Tick season is coming. Ticks can cause dangerous disease called Lyme disease. Kids and pets usually pick up the most ticks, since they get off the trail and run around the bushes a lot more.

Watch this video and learn how to avoid ticks.

To learn more about ticks and tick removal go here: http://www.momanddadcamping.com/camping/health-and-safety/camping-and-ticks.html