Many parts of the US prohibit carrying firearms in the wilderness. This is particularly true of National Parks.

On the off-chance of being attacked by a bear or some other large creature while camping/backpacking there, do you think its possible to incapacitate them with a Taser?

Anyone's thoughts on this?

I am not sure on this one, but I would think that most animals have thick fur that kinda acts like a heavy coat and the barbs might just bounce or skip off of the body.

Dave

I think I'd rather have a road flare.

1. Tasers are short range, single shot and require controlled activation. They work well if backed up with a shotgun.
2. I carry a 10" AOW pump shotgun in the pack.
2. Don't ask, don't tell - carry a big bore hand gun.
3. Pepper spray - at least 4 oz.
4. The 15 minute road flare mentioned is not above consideration. At least you will have 15 minutes to get your personal effects in order if the threat is human.

I don't like tasers. A man died in Vancouver last week after being tasered in an airport. At least with pepper spray you spray and the threat has the option to turn away from the cloud...with a taser the victim just has to sit there and have muscle spasms until you're done or the battery runs out. I like to think the wildlife deserves a bit more respect than that...they were there first. I know some of you are going go into the kill or be killed way of thinking...but it's relatively easy to avoid an animal attack proactively.

Also, carrying pepper spray is legal...I'm not sure about in the US but in Canada a taser is classified as a prohibited weapon and all the same laws and rules apply.

Which is pretty silly, but I thought it was allowed in places, maybe its the national forests, I forget now. I remember seeing all the hunting rules on one of the national web sites.

National Forests allow firearms, National Parks generally don't.

I personally don't see tasers as being particularly useful against wildlife. As ponder pointed out they're short range devices. I don't want to wait until a bear is 15 to 21 feet away. Not to mention they're also around $300 dollars. (Taser C2, 15 foot range, $300-$350 price tag, extra cartrige $25 http://www.taser.com/products/consumers/Pages/default.aspx) Pepper spray is highly effective against bears and doesn't cost nearly as much ($40-50). Pepper spray has about double the range of a taser. (http://www.udap.com/Bearspecifications.htm)

Given the choice between a gun, taser, and bear spray against a bear, I'd chose bear spray.

Interesting question. I certainly would not want to be the test case for your idea but it would be interesting to read the results of the test case or the autopsy report.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/26/taser-death-at-vanco.html

Here's an article about it on the guy who died. It links to YouTube as somebody got it recorded...it's pretty disturbing if you ask me.

I had to go hunt it down, forests if your hunting or have a permit, can't really find anything on the parks web site stating either way. They sure don't make it easy to find.