Taking unnecessary risks when your life isn't in immediate danger

From BearWiki

Claim: Bear's love of going through obstacles rather than around them is contradictory to wilderness survival.

The facts are simple: if you have water, shelter, and health, even without food, you can live for a month. If you suffer a fatal injury, you're dead. If you suffer an injury that knocks you unconscious, you're likely to die. If you suffer an injury that gets infected and needs antibiotics, you have a few days to live. If you suffer an injury that affects your ability to move, your entire survival is in jeopardy.

Your near-universally recommended best advice when you don't know where you are is to wait for rescue. If you are moving about, one should never rush things by pursuing risky behavior unless there is an immediate threat to life, because going through obstacles, not around them, is a very serious, very immediate, and very likely threat to life.

[edit] Analysis

Support: Not too long ago, Backpacker Magazine (www.backpacker.com) put out a special SURVIVAL issue, and one of the articles was named (can you guess it?) A Dozen Ways To Die. It's about the most common ways people manage to die in the backcountry - 12 of them.

I was not surprised that animal attack was not in the top 10, but I was surprised that hypothermia wasn't #1.

In order of their degree of fatality (culled from NPS, SAR organizations, etc.):

1. Unprotected falls. People either climb higher than their ability allows for a safe ascent or descent, or they try descending a face that is too steep and dangerous

2. Drowning. This usually occurs on "frozen" lakes and whitewater rivers.

3. Heart attack.

4. Hypothermia. Also known as exposure. I was surprised this wasn't #1. It doesn't require freezing temps - only temps in the 50s, with wet and windy conditions contributing. Wearing cotton clothing (jeans, sweatshirt, etc.) can exacerbate this condition. It's best to keep yourself warm & dry instead of having to get yourself warm and dry.

5. Heat stress

6. Lightning. I'm surprised this isn't listed as a threat more often on this show. I'm much more afraid of lightning than bears or mountain lions

7. Avalanche. I believe Colorado leads the nation in avalanche deaths every year. Just poking the snow with a ski pole is NOT an adequate test for avalanche conditions, nor is the "SNOW PIT" Bear scraped out in the snow..

8. Suicide

9. Flash flood

10. Insects

11. Snakes & spiders

12. Predators, including alligators, mountain lions, and bears

Keep in mind this isn't MY list. But given these risks, I do think it would be prudent to address these and prevent these instead of endorsing behaviors that contribute to these. How many behaviors in this list does Bear endorse in EVERY episode?