Keep in mind that these are news articles, not research reports where Smith presents his findings in a detailed, comprehensive manner suitable for scientific scrutiny. If you are interested, check out the next issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.
On that note, here is a link to the article in the Journal of Wildlife Management:
Efficacy of firearms for bear deterrence in AlaskaUnfortunately only the abstract can be viewed for free, but hopefully after the article has been out for a little bit a copy of it will be posted for free somewhere (like his other study I referred to above).