An emergency room doctor once explained to me in a shooting investigation (three that week) that bird shot at room distances was hard to fix. Instead of holes, he was dealing with hamburger. I have seen in excess of 15 such shootings at room distances or closer involving bird shot, with all but one fatal. Shot tends to string rather than spread at such distances, and stringing basically HAMMERS a big hole thru the bone and tissue. It literally chases the shot in front of it, causing a wound I described to reporters as awful, and hard to look at, at times. The bear was history at that range, ESPECIALLY with a head shot.