Since the subject of bears is a recurring on here, I thought this might be of interest. Dean Weingarten, an old friend, has done a brief article on the subject of Bear Spray v. Bullets: Flaws in the Studies which makes for interesting reading if you follow the links:

http://www.ammoland.com/2014/10/bear-spray-v-bullets-flaws-in-the-studies/

Weingarten's article claims rely on another article by "The Bear Examiner," Dave Smith. When you click on the link, to Dave Smith's article, you learn that the main argument that Dave Smith makes is that Tom Smith's and Stephen Herrero's works on bear attacks are fraudulent because they deliberately excluded a previous study by Miller and Tutterrow that (1) includes many more bear incidents, and (2) shows the effectiveness of firearms. Dave Smith concludes that Tom Smith and Stephen Herrero lied about their data and misrepresented their study as the first ever on bear attacks.

I think we need to call on a nature biologist who actually works on this sort of stuff to settle the issue. But we are also intelligent adults, and we can figure a few things out ourselves. Tom Smith does cite Miller's work -- and a whole host of other studies on bear attacks, You can't misrepresent your work as the "first ever" if you cite a whole bunch of other works that come before yours. in fact. I also noticed that Tom Smith and Miller seem to define their cases differently, which may account for the numerical disparity between the datasets of Miller's and Smith's studies.

The peer review process generally eliminates stuff like failure to cite important previous studies on a subject, especially if they matter for the article under review. It's also pretty good at eliminating obvious data fraud like the sort that "The Bear Examiner" accuses Smith and Herrero of. No, it's not perfect, and perhaps some stuff slips through -- however, the sort of stuff that slips through is not so obvious that "The Bear Examiner" can explain in the sort of simplistic argument he uses. ("They cherry-picked their examples!") I think "The Bear Examiner" is just some amateur hack with opinions that don't square with facts. It looks to me like he misrepresented the scientific research to advance his personal agendas. Click on his bio, and his main qualification seem to be "I've spent a lot of time out there." Doug, your friend Weingarten should stop listening to him.

Just to be clear -- in the spray vs gun thing I don't necessarily advocate one thing over another. However, I get annoyed by ignorant attacks on science.

Somehow I suspect that Ammoland, the publication in which Weingarten's article appeared, is not big on peer review. Let's just leave it at that.

I found the last paragraph of the "Bear Examiner" piece amusing. Apparently those who choose to carry bear spray are now members of a cult! LOL

If you are looking for another study this one is an even better study out of Alaska, but with varied authors from both Canada and US, who are both Academics and Government Employees.

Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska

I like the use of Alaska for these studies, it is closes to Canada in Latitude, it has a frontier mentality which means a higher level of gun handling and individuals are more likely to have a fire arm handy than in the south and still people carry and use Bear Spray.

Bear Spray vs. Guns Arguments should not be about "Gun Control", it about saving lives. If you have a Shot Gun Loaded with Slugs, in your hand, you are an excellent shot, then no problem. {PS this would also break Canadian Gun Laws unless you were out hunting with the gun).

Bear Spray is Legal in Parks & Protected Areas, Readily Available, Easy to Learn to Use, Highly Deployable and fairly Safe to Use (on both the Bears & Yourself)

Bear Spray Work well for what it is designed to do, nothing more. It does not means we should stop hunting, target shooting or owning weapons. Just that Bear Spray can save both the Your Life and the Bears Life more often.

Let's see... It would be a cult with an introductory invocation of "Let us spray," leading up to a sermon on "Mist opportunities.."

Actually, the data on use of bear spray looks pretty decent.

Too lazy to follow links, but my opinion is still the same: I'll take a gun over spray. That's my opinion and I'll stand by it.

"However, I get annoyed by ignorant attacks on science."

I would say ignorant attacks are a big part of science. How many scientists have been vindicated late in life or after death after peers tried to humiliate them.

It does seem studies are being used to draw conclusions that don't really match with the findings about bear defense.

I normally don't comment without reading the link and I will read the article, but I do want to point out that lots more people can 1) legally carry spray, 2) can afford spray and 3) are able to learn to deploy it effectively. It's easy for those of us that are experienced shooters to overestimate the ability of a person (including ourselves) to stop an attack with a firearm. Shooting, especially with a handgun, takes some practice.

You make an excellent point and one that really strikes home for me. I have enjoyed shooting sports all my life and appreciated all the free ammo when I got my LEO commission and the periodic sessions afterward. I am probably better trained than the average.

But, I am rusty, and I haven't shot intensively in years. I am almost certainly better off with spray than with bullets,and it is a lot cheaper, too. 357 Magnum is considered marginal for bear defense, and I am sure I could spend $1000 or more on a more suitable handgun. Bear spray is what - 30 to 50 bucks? I could carry my 12 gauge with slugs or buckshot, but that is heavier and more cumbersome than a spray canister.

So, the next time I am in serious bear country (like Alaska) I will pack chemicals instead of lead. When I leave, I can always trade unused canisters for water (cool, clear water!)....

Alaska Glacier Water !

Just remember that all the water we drink, even Alaska Glacier Water,is essentially recycled dinosaur [censored] (and who knows what else!)

I have a range membership at the LGS. Generally I try to shoot every week (it's an indoor range just a few miles from my house) but realistically I'm lucky to get there every other, and sometimes it's every third. When I get especially busy and hit the range after a longer absence it's always disconcerting how much the "rust" shows. Pistol shooting is a peculiarly perishable skill and it quickly degrades without regular practice.

I have to maintain my certification and would prefer punching big, deep holes in a bear instead of merely annoying it worse with spray. The simple fact is if you have time to draw a cannister and discharge it, you have time to draw a hefty revolver. If a bear is after me I;m not going to be concerned with him surviving the encounter instead of myself.

the August issue of Outside magazine has a good story about an American expedition into the Arctic Ocean in late 1880's
to make a long story short the writer talks about following the story to Wrangel Island off the Russian coast.
he meets the Russian ranger who lives on the island,just one of four along with lots and lots of Polar bears.the preserve ranger just has a can of pepper spray and a flare gun on is belt,no AK47.
so that sort of gives me the impression that the spray and a good bam from a flare gun is enough to drive off a bear,a big nasty one!

It would be a heck of a trick to have an AK47 in the 1880's! It wasn't invented for another lifetime or so. Do you mean 1980's?

opps..i ment to say the present day writer who returned to the island just in the last year to research the 1880's expedition was met by a unarmed Russian reserve ranger.

Ah, that makes more sense! If I was in big bear country I'd want a gun but I would also want spray.

Agreed. I just started to read a couple of the articles and one item that jumped out to me.

Dave Smith - the Bear Attack Examiner, states "Instead of offering a meaningful explanation for major differences between the two studies on firearms vs bears, Smith and Herrero claimed there were no previous studies on firearms vs. bears." That is not a truthful statement itself since the very research article (T. Smith and S. Herrero) that Dave Smith is disparaging actually quotes the 1999 study by Miller and Tutterrow that supposedly they denied existed. So when I see a blatantly contradictory statement like that, my eyes get a little buggy and I am skeptical about the rest of his article from examiner.com He goes on with his inflammatory language - "It appears that Smith & Herrero cherry-picked their data." and "Bear spray is the answer for people who don't like firearms, don't own a firearm capable of stopping a bear, or simply can't stomach the idea of killing a bear in defense of life or property. Bear spray has a cult following." What I didn't see in the article was a rational or calm objective argument or a comparison of the various studies. The writer definitely has a major chip on his shoulder.

I think the jury is still out on whether guns or bear spray is a better defence and only time and many more incidents will prove a statistical statement. Jeremy Bruskotter's assertion in his article in Wildlife News that "bear spray is the clear winner by any criteria" is also just too slanted and too much opinion with little research to back up his claim.

I do agree with one assertion by Dave Smith, "Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, which examined 72 incidents. Smith's 2008 study included 31 incidents from Herrero's 1999 study. We're looking at a total of 107 bear spray incidents. That's too small a sample size to draw firm conclusions."

Agreed, Smith comes off as biased and not even close to being objective.

However, regarding this from Smith:

"Bear spray is the answer for people who don't like firearms, don't own a firearm capable of stopping a bear, or simply can't stomach the idea of killing a bear in defense of life or property. Bear spray has a cult following."

The funny thing is, despite all of Smith's clear shortcomings, this statement is true. I have run across this many times among the treehugging crowd. They are so in love with Gaia and it's beautiful creatures that they literally cringe at the concept of gunning one of them down. Guns scare them and represent individual empowerment at a level that is unacceptable to those who put their faith in Ivy League overseers. So they construct this gauzy alternate universe where a simple, cheap, easily accessible tool requiring little training or skill is the answer to all their furry, claw-laden problems.

[Political commentary deleted]

Me? I'm a belt AND suspenders guy when it comes to bears. I've got the spray, and I've got the high velocity projectile delivery system on my person in bear country.

Reading the articles in question, it seems apparent that the discussion is a skirmish in the larger conflict over the 2nd Amendment and the right to carry which obscures what should be an objective, relatively unemotional inquiry about the relative merits of bear spray and firearms. This is actually a relatively knotty problem, since not all "incidents" are equivalent.

I am caught in the middle on this. Basically, I am a life long owner and user of firearms, but with increasing knowledge and experience, I carry less and less when outdoors. If bear spray is going to be as effective as bullets in an encounter, what is there not to like in a gadget that is lighter and cheaper?

Also missing from the discussion is the need to develop good habits when in bear country - situational awareness, clean camps, proper food storage. Doing right in those areas and you may never have to deploy either gun or spray.

I don't agree with this. On the surface, a study of 107 incidents seems small but in reality that is the nature of bear attacks. They are a very low-probability event so we're never going to get a sample of multiple thousands to study (at least not for a very long time).

To put the numbers in context, in Smith & Herrrero's study on firearms in Alaska, they only had 269 incidents to look at ... and that study covered bear-human conflicts involving firearms from 1883 - 2009. The bear spray study spanned 1985 - 2006.

I understand the Bear Examiner article says this limited amount of a data is due to cherry picking by citing the 2 thousand odd cases in the Miller & Tutterrow study (interesting read by the way, worth checking out). This claim seems off-base, if not simply disingenuous.

The Miller & Tutterow's study was looking at something quite different than Smith & Herrero were. They were comparing bears that were killed in defence of life or property in Alaska to sport kills, to try and better understand the differences. This makes a pretty large difference because the 2 most prevalent reasons for the killing of the bear were "Bear was thought to be dangerous" and "To protect property." Secondly, the study notes that for "both species of bear, the person shooting the bear most frequently described their activity as at home or dwelling." So, this study seems to encompass a large number of incidents that seem to fall outside of the scope of what Smith & Herrero were looking at in their firearm study.

Finally, the biggest difference I think, is that Miller & Tutterow were only studying cases where the bear died ... these are by default successful uses of firearms.

In the full context of their study, the less than 2% injury rate of humans makes sense ... these were all successful uses of firearms by people, often at home, and who, for the most part, weren't under imminent threat. The authors recognized and included in their report, stating: "However, when injuries or deaths from bears occurred, the bear frequently was not found, so these data under represent the frequency of injury to people from bears."

You are very right, proper Bear Awareness means you may never have to use either as we travel into the wilderness. Looking for Bear Sign (Scat, Paw Prints, Scathed Trees, Field Diggings, etc.), Avoiding areas with High concentrations of Bear Signs, Making Noise as you Travel, Not Traveling Alone, Keeping good control of both Garbage and Foods are things we can all do to avoid or minimize possible Bear Encounters. 300kg of Grizzly Bear makes things like that very hard.

This article may put a smile on this complicated issue, Bear Bites Pepper Spray. In this case the Mountain Biker was in a National Park and could not have carried a gun, and would have been unlikely to have been physically able to have pulled out a Handgun after he was knocked over by the Bear. In this case his Bear Spray worked for him even when he did not have time to deploy it. Now if anyone can find a properly working firearm that can shoot the Bear by itself I will be impressed!

just a few words about watching for bear sign and keeping a clean camp.
a couple years ago i was talking with my outfitter before leaving on a canoe trip about the bear sightings where i was going.
he pointed out a map that was marked with red dots where bears had been reported around but not always right in campsites.
there were only a couple dots.then he flipped the map back and went thru a series of them going back over ten years.as he went back in years the map filled up with red dots.
the change he said was,what he thought,due to the work the local outfitters in Ely MN had done to educate people on the importance of keeping a clean camp and hanging food bags where the bears could not get to them.after a few years the bears stopped coming around so much looking for a easy meal.


this is not the sort of thing i like to find in a camp but with no other bear signs i set up and stayed overnight.

I think you hit the bullseye, hikermor! Having lived in Alaska since 1984, I've followed this debate closely for years. What I find fascinating is how the terms of the debate have shifted over time.

It wasn't that long ago that people were ridiculed for carrying spray. Firearms proponents were convinced that spray couldn't possibly work. And certain gun proponents implied that spray certainly wasn't very 'manly'. But slowly, year after year, more and more evidence accumulated that spray works, and works rather well. Then the argument was that while maybe spray would discourage an agressive bear, but it couldn't possibley stop a full-on charge. But, again, plenty of incidents demonstrated that spray would indeed stop a charge. Spray has even been successful when the bear had someone down and was chewing on them.

What is fascinating about the links in the OP is that these folks now seem almost defensive about the effectiveness of firearms. Like they are worried that people might think that pepper spray might even prove better than firearms! I found it hilarious when they claimed that bear spray users are a cult!

I'm with you on this also. I own guns, both long and short. I've killed bears (on hunts, not in defense) and have a bear rug on my wall. I am by no stretch anti-gun. But these days I opt to carry spray rather than a firearm. Spray has been proven to work, it is lighter to carry, cheaper, and generally less of a hassle than firearms.

Dang....we agree again! Great minds think alike.

"Also missing from the discussion is the need to develop good habits when in bear country - situational awareness, clean camps, proper food storage. Doing right in those areas and you may never have to deploy either gun or spray. "

That's missing from the debate because "good habits in bear country" is not the topic. The debate is "guns vs. spray". Going on about habits in bear country is like being at a "airbags vs seat belts" conference and saying "well you know, if you just use good driving habits you'll likely never need airbags or seat belts".

True, but irrelevant to the discussion. The point is to explore the benefits of tools employed once the collision has already commenced.

If the evidence is as clear cut as you present it, why are the relevant studies so ambiguous? If the data is really that stark surely you could present an unbiased and irrefutable paper on how clear the truth is regarding spray.

That sounds snarky. That's not my intent but again, if the data are so clear how could there be any debate left?

Actually the evidence that spray is effective is pretty unambiguous. Smith, Hererro, et al's paper is quite well documented. The attemps to debunk it aren't terribly convincing. Bear spray works quite well.

No one denies that firearms also work. Even Hererro states that explicitly in his book. Whether or not spray works better (or worse) than firearms is an entirely different question.

But spray does work. Not long ago we had yet another successful use of spray in Alaska. A fish biologist was jumped suddenly by a bear on Kodiak. Bear had him down, with the guys leg in the bear's mouth. The guy managed to use his spray and the bear ran off. It does work.

If you choose not to rely on spray, that is your choice. I don't much care one way or another what you do. But claiming that spray doen't work, and work well, is [insert mod prohibited term for male bovine excrement].

No, actually that is THE question and the focus of the entire discussion here. What's the title of this thread? "Bear Spray vs. Bullets", not "Does Spray Ever Work?".

Oh no! Thread drift strikes again. Has this ever happened before on ETS? (and yes, I confess -I am guilty, and this is not my first offense.)

But it is worth remembering that if you are in a situation where you are using either implement, you are either very unlucky or at least somewhat negligent. Reading Herrero's studies, it seems pretty clear that the Prime Directive in bear country is to keep a clean camp.

I have both pepper spray and firearms.

I wouldn't want to face an angry charging bear with pepper spray. I wouldn't want to face an angry charging bear with a firearm. I wouldn't want to face an angry charging bear period. So my first choice would be to avoid the encounter entirely.

If I couldn't avoid the encounter, I would want to engage the bear for the farthest distance away (of course, only AFTER identifying him as an actual threat). That favors a firearm. But you would need to have enough gun for the job, and know the vital areas of a bear in order to shoot effectively. Many people fail in both of these categories. So that would favor pepper spray, which you would instinctively aim at the correct place - the face. Unfortunately, that face would have to be right in YOUR face for the pepper spray to be useful with its limited range.

You are not guaranteed to win no matter which defensive choice you make. Best to avoid playing the game in the first place. If I absolutely had to choose, it would be a rifle. Minimum cartridge choice would be full load .45-70gov. Best of both worlds would be to wrap the pepper spray in bacon and toss it to the bear. While he's munching on it, shoot the can with the .45-70 (idea stolen from the first Jaws movie!)

Hey, maybe someone could write up a FAQ or make a bear spray thread into a sticky. This seems like a recurrent topic around here.

[commentary on political commentary redacted]I agree with Hikermor that we all need to look at the data objectively to see the relative merit of spray vs bullets.

On the other hand, the general recommendation to carry spray over firearms when you're not hunting doesn't mean *you* in particular cannot do a good job defending yourself against a bear with your gun. (Uh, I mean you have the gun. I don't mean the bear has your gun.) It's like the self-defense advice: if you carry a knife, it could be used against you -- but that applies primarily to people who have little idea what you're doing. Some, like AKSAR, know what to do when shooting a bear. Me, I just know a little about running madly through a course while putting two rounds in the A zone on each cardboard target, shaving seconds off for a better score. The pepper spray is probably a better choice for me.

For the hunters on the board, if a bear is charging at you, where do you want to place your rounds? I'm thinking it's got its thick skull lowered. You need to hit the CNS, because a bear will still have the time to kill you even with a severed artery. How do you do that? Use a magic bullet that can make a 180 degree turn and get to their medulla oblongata from behind the neck?

[commentary on political commentary redacted]I prefer a gun but we had both with us when we went to Alaska. Others prefer spray. I say take what you yourself is comfortable and confident with. The simple fact is that if a bear is determined to have you for lunch you need to fight back. Shoot him spray him, or stab him if need be, like the mountain men of old. It's another hazard you face out there in the bush and if you are unprepared to face it among the myriad of hazards then perhaps you would be more comfortable watching the Nature Channel. Sorry if that sounds insensitive, but I'm sure S&R and whoever has to recover your remains would agree.

Death by Bear is a rather rare event,especially compared to the many who die from falls, drowning, or severe weather. Don't forget to plan for those eventualities as well.

Of course, the odds change drastically if you are bushwhacking through a blueberry patch in autumn on Kodiak Island....

Don't forget to have fun out there.

I don't think that time has past, at least not completely. I've been involved in a few of these threads on ETS over the years and I think that if you go through them there is at least one person implying that it you are risking your life unnecessarily by carrying spray instead of a firearm.

The other theme I've noticed are those that seem to think you aren't really defending yourself unless you kill the beast attacking you. They seem to prioritize killing the attacker over ending the attack (or at least don't see these as 2 separate things).


Talking to this specifically, all the available information does indicate that bear spray is better than firearms for this specific use. While both can be used to successfully defend oneself against bears, bear spray both has a higher success rate in stopping attacks and a lower injury rate in their users.

The only caveat right now is that bear spray is the newer technology and therefore has fewer total reported uses than firearms. As the years march on we will get more data. However, as bear attacks are both rare and make for a good news story, we are able to see the results of the encounters as they happen. So far we are seeing the result of the studies backed up in the stories that hit the news.

It's worth noting that the article cited quoted a news story highlighting the successful use of bear spray. You would've thought that if the failure rates of spray were closer to those of firearms that they could've at least quoted a story where someone attempted to defend themselves with bear spray but failed.

Belt and suspenders worked for this guy. Spray wasn't enough , gun didn't kill bear either. Both together got R done tho.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/gun-cha...76d119223d.html