Everything we've read about bear spray is wrong?

Oh, boy! Here we go again! Interesting article; it may be that everything we've been told about bear spray vs firearms is wrong and based on a very flawed reading of very flawed studies. It appears that bear spray is very effective at 'hazing' bears that are curious but has about a 33% chance of dissuading and actual attack. And it's less effective against black bears than Grizzlies.

I would encourage everyone to carefully read the linked article, then read it again.

Discuss!

Lots of good stuff in this article.

A few thoughts:

• If you plan to carry a firearm, get training first, and of course only do so legally. Know your capabilities and limitations.
• Defensive tools need to be readily accessible, or they may as well be on Pluto. This likely requires forethought and adjustment of how you carry your tools and whatever pack you have.
• Avoidance is best. Following that is non-lethal deterrence.

One train of thought is that if a animal is attacking, it is better to kill it then, rather than run it off to later attack someone else again.

If a bear is treating a human as an annoyance or a threat to their cubs, that’s one thing. If a bear is trying to eat a human, that’s something entirely different. My reading leads me to think that bear spray is significantly less likely to deter a predatory bear, and I’d be a lot more inclined to use louder tools.

My real-world interactions with bears have been limited to taking pictures at the zoo, so I’m certainly no expert.

Taking this line of thought to its logical conclusion, shouldn't we just shoot all bears on sight before they have the opportunity to attack?

Then we can start on the wolves, coyotes, snakes, and any other animal that poses a potential threat. Safety first! (along with a dash of sarcasm).

I think it depends on the reason for the attack. Bears will sometimes attack when you surprise them or get too close to their cubs. If that's the case then the bear is displaying normal bear behavior; that's kind of 'self defense' on the part of the bear and it not necessarily to attack another human. But if the attack is predatory- ie the bear intending to kill and eat a human- that bear has to die or a human will eventually die.

Humans are pretty soft, weak prey for apex predators (at least in the absence of a firearm). Allowing humans to become food habituated to people is extremely dangerous to both humans and bears. Bears should fear humans and when they don't bad things happen.

If the bear is attacking you, you may get one chance to do what you can in a second's time. If you haven't done by then, you are not going to get to do it. There will not be time to think through options. If you don't have it ready, it will not be used.

if you are talking other wildlife attacks, I would want to kill and keep the animal for testing. Dogs, bats, skunks, coyotes, ticks, snakes, spiders, wolves.

That man attacked by a wolf in Canada has to go thru rabies shots. They later killed what they thought was the wolf, but can't be 100%. Antivenin costs in the US can bankrupt a person. Lyme disease can be no fun either.

I don't know what serious diseases bear bites carry. The transmittable to human ones I am aware of come from the human eating the bear. (trichinosis, parasitic worms).

"Taking this line of thought to its logical conclusion, shouldn't we just shoot all bears on sight before they have the opportunity to attack?"

How is that logical? Most bears (or people for that matter) won't attack. Ones that have attacked, do so again frequently enough.

A bear tearing thru your trash can deserves some hazing to keep it from being habituated. A snoot full of pepper spray may be a good thing for the bear. (That and a better trash can).

A bear tearing thru your buddies skull ---

There is a judgement call to be made, in my mind lethal force comes into play at least when the animal has wounded someone.

I think generally you're right but last fall here in Bozeman a young man was attacked by a Grizz. Kid barely saw the bear before it was on him. It charged and knocked him flying into a tree, and as he was under the bear he managed to retrieve his bear spray from his backpack on his back (!)and drive off the bear! Man, hope the kid bought a lottery ticket on the way home.

I think the most important thing is to not assume you're dead until you actually are! Keep doing everything you can til the bear digests you!

Just to clarify my OP, I really didn't state it quite correctly. There was nothing wrong with the two studies but they have been used incorrectly to make comparisons that aren't valid. Yet that's not the fault of the original researcher.

There are always exceptions. You should never give up, never stop trying to survive, and this person exemplifies this. But this bear was not trying to eat him and was not intent on killing him either. When the grizzly is charging, you don't know what their intention is, you can't read their mind. Have your device, whatever it is, handy and employable in a second or two. You can't depend on the ability to dig it out of your pack. This guy you refer to was lucky.

very well stated CM (and that also applies to two-legged predators!)

Does anyone offer bear defense training? What if you encountered a tactical bear?

Learn to Return's Wildlife Awareness & Defense course

"This 1-day program is designed for anyone who is interested in improving their wildlife awareness, deterrent, and defensive skills. We cover specific threats and common deterrent techniques and equipment. The afternoon is spent at the local range detailing weapon safety and coaching students on improving their shooting comfort and proficiency."

https://www.survivaltraining.com/courses/bear-wildlife-awareness/

"Eggs are good for you!" "Eggs are really bad for you!" Its common to see competing opinion pieces and studies. Sometimes you have to take things with a grain of salt and not distill too much authority in any one opinion. Often a study will have some predisposed bias that they seek to reinforce instead of just letting the data speak for itself.

While your question seems to be tongue-in-cheek, I’ll answer it as though you were serious.

• Situational awareness is critical to early recognition of potential threats.
• Avoidance is best whenever possible.
• Evasion or withdrawal is next best after avoidance, where feasible.
• De-escalation, depending on circumstances, may work with human aggressors. It’s worked well in at least some cases with bears who were scared or annoyed. With a predatory (“tactical”) bear, my reading leads me to think that de-escalation is very unlikely to give good results.
• I train my students to use “Alpha Commands” (such as “Stop!” or “Drop it!”) if circumstances both warrant and permit. Admittedly, where I live, ursine aggressors are sufficiently uncommon that it’s never come up in any class I’ve taught or attended.
• If all else fails, move to a position of advantage if possible, and shoot until the threat is neutralized or gives up. The untrained commonly shoot faster than they can be accurate — it’s critical to make your hits. You cannot miss fast enough to win.

I don’t so much strongly discourage my students from firing warning shots as instruct them sternly to never, ever do so. My assumption is that ursine aggressors are more commonly found in areas where warning shots aren’t so likely to hurt a human or be destructive to property, but I have no idea whether a bear would be indifferent or even angered by them.

I am with Clearwater, we just had another bear attack in Colorado. Black bear came in to a couples home out side of Denver the husband got clawed and his wife used a baseball bat to chase off the critter.
If my short memory serves that is Two bear and catamount attacks around here in the last 12 months. Yep very rare
On a side note Heimo Korth has lived in Grizzly country for 42 years and carries a pistol, almost all the time out side his cabin. No EMT, hospital etc .
MTC YMMV

That's four attacks. How many fatal falls during this period? How many drowning? How many fatal bee attacks? Attacks by dogs? Automobile accidents while en route to the outdoors?

I haven't seen any mention of Steve Herrero's work on bear attacks, either in the cited article or in the subsequent discussion. I believe he concluded that bear spray was pretty effective. One take away from his book that impressed me was the need to keep a clean camp; that seemed to trigger many incidents.

Wow! A whole afternoon at the range...I wonder just a tad if that is really enough time to gain proficiency.

I've never heard of him nor his works. Do any of them refute the above? The point I made in posting is that the most cited "evidence" that bear spray is 98% effect never actually stated that at all. In driving off curious but non-aggressive bears (ie 'hazing') spray is effective. But in driving off bears that are already attacking it's startling ineffective, as in it works 1 in 3 times! That doesn't mean it's useless, just that a lot of folks have a false sense of security not borne out by facts.

As for other threats- yeah, they exist. But what of it? It's not as though you're only allowed to address a specific number of potential problems! Using seatbelts doesn't use up one "safety slot" that requires you to discard your fire extinguisher. That's the point of being Equipped To Survive! And ignoring bears isn't likely to protect from bees any more than it will prevent a car crash. Safety shouldn't be a zero-sum exercise.

Also FWIW there may not be a lot of bear attacks in the lower 48 but they're clustered within 30 miles of my house. I spend a lot of time in areas with lots of bears. That makes it interesting to me. One of my best friends has to kill one black bear and one mountain lion in self defense so I know it happens occasionally. And no, it wasn't both on the same hike.

I think it is a matter of tending to what is likely to kill or injure you rather than what makes the headlines. That doesn't mean you should be oblivious to the possibility of bear attacks and if you are in bear country, you should be mindful and take measure with which you are comfortable. Mostly this boils down to either bear spray or a firearm. People make their choice, and that's fine. This is a free country.

I can't find my copy of Herrero's book - "Bear Attacks and How to Avoid Them" (or something close to that). I believe he was favorably disposed to spray, although clearly spray is not perfect. What he really stressed was keeping a clean camp and making your presence known when around bears. I don't recall a percentage figure.

Lots of critters kill more people than bears - like honey bees (something like fifty or so a year). This isn't trivial. A good friend of mine, a strong hiker ,climber, and marathon runner, as well as a stalwart SAR member, was violently allergic to bees. he always kept an epipen handy, and he made sure that his companions knew about his condition and measures to take.

BTW, I was reading a summary of fatal bear attacks and there was one account of a lady evidently killed by a bear, although the summary stated that death may have been due to a round fired by her companion in an attempt to drive away the bear. Nothing is perfect....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Herrero

A good reference on Herrero and his work.

Herrero was a co author with Smith. Their work is one mentioned in the article as being misrepresented.

"Comparing picking up apples to picking up hand grenades"


Having had bears threaten me and family both as a little kid and as an adult, having witnessed an attack (in Tualumne Meadows of all places) and having had to deal with nuisance bears, having had an elderly friend chased out of her house by one, bears have been a greater threat than bees.

Ah, missed that part (and I'm reaaally bad with names).

Luckily I'm not allergic to bees or wasps although I don't enjoy being stung. I take precautions to avoid both. The issue with bears is that they run faster than Usain Bolt and they're hard to avoid sometimes. Camp hygiene is important but that won't help if you stumble on one hiking.

I'm not condemning bear spray and I have four cans of the stuff, two Counter Assault and two of the Udap. Mostly I'm just bringing to light something that I for one didn't know. Every article I've read up til that one parroted the same old "98% effective" stat and I figured that was likely right even though I've seen some high profile cases where the spray had zero effect.

Information is power, and everyone should look at all the facts before deciding what to carry. That's all I'm getting at.

I think hikermor's point isn't that bear encounters couldn't be dangerous or couldn't happen, but that there are far more likely causes of death and injury. Budget your resources accordingly.

Bear attacks are like dying at the hands of serial killers, getting taken out by the Sinaloa cartel and buried in the desert, or becoming a part of the statistics in a mass shooting. Getting a heart attack, dying in a car crash on your commute, getting a mortal reaction to an insect bite, etc. are all more likely. But we focus on the sensational stuff. We have long threads about bear attacks, but many people won't diet and exercise to save their heart.

By the way, chaos, obviously "tactical bears" are... black bears!!!

True, but it's not really any extra effort for me to expand my scope to one more threat. I am already armed virtually any times I'm wearing pants so it's just a matter of choosing an appropriate firearm for the task.

Now tactical bears, that's more worrisome yet!

This is an interesting instance of different life experiences. I have done a great deal of hiking an climbing in ariona, mostly around Tucson, from1956 to 1985 when I transferred to the Channel Islands and a very different environment (no bears, just sharks).

In AZ, i had some bear encounters without noticeable incidents, the most notable being shining a light on a bear rummaging in our garbage can at Chiricahua Nat'l Mon. I shouted to my wife "We've got a bear in our trash" and the bear took off. Smart bear, he didn't want ti deal with that wife.

Snakes - quite a few over the years (an occupational hazard of archaeology). Generally they go one way and I go the other.

Mountain lions - Lots of time in their turf,t particularly around Baboquivari Peak. I have never seen one in the flesh, just their tracks.

Doing volunteer SAR, lots and lots of fall victims, including numerous fatalities. It is amazing how many folks drown in the desert (flash floods). We lost eight in one afternoon at a popular rec area. It took a week to find them all. I understand I made a brief appearance on ABC, extricating a victim on rappel from a flowing waterfall.

My take on all this. Know the hazard profile on the area in which you are venturing and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to deal with them. I possess a variety of firearms, but carry them less and less, other equipment being more broadly useful (and lighter)> At one point a NPS commissioned LEO and military veteran, I consider myself adequate trained.

The main point of this is that one should be aware of potential problems, and take appropriate measures. these will vary, depending on resources available and individual background.

While I am not a big fan of guns, there are times and places where they are the best tool.

Can't say as I disagree. We seem to face different risks. In Idaho and Montana I have so far not seen a snake of any kind although there must be some present. Luckily, also no sharks. There are risks associated with getting to the woods (eg car accident) but once there the risks are of the mundane variety for the most part: Ticks and their associated diseases, getting lost, mosquitoes and their associated diseases, mechanical injuries including falls or trees falling, cuts from axes, saws and knives, exposure/hypothermia, drowning (pretty unlikely here but no impossible) and wild critters. Probably the 2 legged variety as well although I have had no issues here yet.

A very interesting discussion thanks Phaedrus , I was just watching a show on the animal planet call I Was Prey, many different encounters with the animal world.
However the most dangerous Is Homo sapiens.