Chapter 553 - 550 Excited Black Bear
The open hunting quota for Black Bears is one hundred.
Once that number is reached, the rankings will be set in stone.
It’s the morning of the fourth day.
More than sixteen Black Bears have been killed in total, with everyone fully energized, preparing to go all out in the days to come.
Some hunters even carried a large pack of supplies and lived in the forest, planning not to return to town for repairs after hunting a Black Bear, but to pitch a tent and continue hunting.
Fortunately, they are not here, or one would definitely smell the strong odor of sweat.
Many even have a thick smell of blood on them, and they simply don’t care that their scent could be picked up by large carnivores and attract them.
Japan has no packs of wolves, no tigers, and no super predators as agile and menacing as lions, with only Black Bears and Brown Bears being the large predators present.
It’s fine if they don’t come, but if they do, it would be perfect; the hunters with their sharpened knives are looking forward to it.
The succession of sunny days has made today’s weather even hotter than the previous two days.
The topsoil exposed to the sunlight can be crumbled into powder with a grab, slipping through one’s fingertips.
Bi Fang picked up a handful of soil from the ground and went to higher ground, standing on a huge rock looking down at the forest at the foot of the mountain, slowly squeezing the fine sand out of his hand.
Watching it drift towards a certain direction before dissipating in mid-air.
"Southeast wind, and it’s a light one," Bi Fang commented, squinting at the sun. His body felt as if it was about to burst into flames, with every skin cell screaming in the high temperature. He opened his water bottle and poured all the water over his head, the breeze passing by taking some of the heat away.
Bi Fang wiped his face and said, "Most wild animals are far more afraid of humans than humans are of them, even large animals, so Black Bears generally stay away from humans."
"I’ve mentioned before that Black Bears have a very keen sense of smell and hearing. Downwind, they can smell scents from half a kilometer away and hear footsteps from 300 steps away, so if you want to approach them, it’s best to move upwind rather than downwind."
"If it’s downwind, your scent will reach the Black Bear before you do, and out of caution, it might leave early, adding difficulty to our hunt."
Waiting in one spot is not advisable, and neither is killing a Black Bear in a certain place.
This stems from Black Bears’ strong territorial instinct.
In the entire animal kingdom, virtually all carnivores of medium size or larger have been known to attack humans, but their attacks are rarely for food.
Carnivores in nature all have a relatively fixed diet, and they seldom feed on things outside of it.
For instance, although lions might kill predators like leopards and hyenas, they won’t eat these animals unless they are starving.
Black Bears are the same; they are also afraid of unfamiliar things and will actively avoid them under the instinct to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages.
However, Black Bears are solitary animals with a very strong sense of territory.
Usually, animals with territorial instincts are full of hostility and aggression towards those who intrude into their territory.
"I mentioned this the day before yesterday as well," Bi Fang said, pursing his lips, and began to climb the slope.
After a period of exercise, his spirit was fully awake, and his muscles began to regain strength.
After waking up, humans often experience muscle weakness, but this can be relieved after a short period of activity.
This is because the muscle nerves are not fully awake; the better one sleeps at night, the more obvious the lack of strength in the morning.
After about fifteen minutes of hiking, which was akin to a warm-up exercise, Bi Fang had returned to normal physiological status, eager to get started.
Five hours of sleep wasn’t inadequate; if necessary, Bi Fang could keep his physical energy above a certain level even after staying awake for three days and nights.
This was almost a basic quality required of every special forces soldier.
Moreover, after training, most elites could enter deep sleep in seconds, using the least amount of sleep time for maximal rest.
However, that was under special circumstances, with nerves constantly taut, they would let their brains empty after extreme fatigue, quickly like water.
Generally, they would sleep in multiples of a sleep cycle.
For example, one and a half hours, three hours, four and a half hours, and so on to schedule shifts.
Bi Fang currently didn’t need to do that, waking up in the morning still feeling tired like a normal person.
It seemed there was even a more advanced method of polyphasic sleep which involved sleeping for 30 minutes every four hours, a total of three hours of sleep in 24 hours, which improved cognitive function more than sleeping for three hours at once.
It’s said that (Leonardo) Da Vinci’s sleep method was even more outrageous, sleeping for 15 minutes every four hours of work, which meant that in 24 hours a day, one could sleep six 15-minute sessions, adding up to an hour and a half, and save more time.
But Bi Fang had never tried it himself.
That kind of sleep pattern seemed like a fast track to meeting Yama, oh, in Da Vinci’s case, was it God?
Bi Fang, also somewhat of a health guru, believed that persisting in polyphasic sleep would only disrupt the human body’s circadian rhythm, leading to fatigue, anxiety, reduced immunity, and other adverse reactions.
As a normal way of life, a person’s performance in this state would be much worse than usual.
Beyond that, there wasn’t much else it was good for.
If you’re a student cramming in homework in the last two days of summer or winter break, it might be worth a try; create a miracle in one night.
After stretching his shoulders, Bi Fang maintained a fairly quick speed as he tread over the rocks, moving through the forest; only after crossing the hill in front of him did he continue speaking.
"Generally, the territory of an adult Black Bear ranges from 10 to 40 square kilometers."
"Most people probably don’t have a clear concept of this data, but all you need to know is that 10 square kilometers is equivalent to 1,400 standard soccer fields."
[Holy crap, that big?]
[LOL, I have an idea of one standard soccer field, but I have no concept of 1,400 soccer fields]
Bi Fang shifted his tone, "However, there are so many Japanese Black Bears, and with humans occupying most of the territory, a Black Bear’s territory might not be that large under the pressure from both its own species and humans."
[Have Black Bears started to compete internally now too? (Amused)]
[Compete, everybody compete!]
"Aside from accidentally entering their territory, there’s another situation where Black Bears will initiate an attack, and that’s when female black bears are with their cubs."
"Female black bears with cubs are extremely ’maternal,’ so if you encounter them at this time, once the black bear feels its cubs are threatened, it will initiate an attack."
Generally, these are the two situations when Black Bears will actively attack humans; and in such moments, the bears are extremely dangerous, entering the scene in a state of fury.
This is quite unfriendly for hunters.
Having the initiative in an attack is quite important during hunting.
"Of course, seemingly for no reason, at least that’s how humans view it, there have been incidents of Black Bears attacking humans."
"However, most such attacks occur in the summer, around the mating season, when animals in love, driven by hormones, are like humans, very excited and passionate, and see the world around them differently."
"One thing to note is that the mating season for Black Bears varies by region."
Bi Fang bent down to part the brush, revealing a steaming pile of dung in front of everyone.
What do you think?
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