The real simple fact of the matter is this: 1000's of hikers die, get injured every year by their own undoing and mistakes as compared to those who may even see bear, let alone be charged or mauled by a bear..... All the discussion here will not change these statistics and I cannot believe that the topic of guns vs bear spray comes up so often and always leads to the same arguments.
Yes, it is amazing, isn't it. People who have never even seen a grizzly or brown bear, let alone been attacked by one, or shot one, are more than willing to give "expert" advice. And they tend to get really upset when someone challenges their "facts" (or lack therof).
I live and adventure in bear country on a very regular basis and the last thing crosses my mind, is a bear attack as there are 100's of more self inflicted accidents and mistakes that will cause me injury or death before a bear attack. And yes, I do carry bear spray and after decades of outdoor travels, have never had to use it once and in all likelihood, I will die of old age before having to pull the spray trigger (or any trigger) on a bear...
Yes, that is my view also. I've been living, working, and playing in big bear country for well over two decades. While bears certainly can hurt you, the odds of a serious encounter are
extremely low. I've long been convinced that on any given outing in Alaska, one has at least two orders of magnitude greater risk of dying from hypothermia than a bear attack.
In my earlier post I had a link showing
movements of just 11 collered bears around this town. We are a city of over 300,000 people, with some estimates of upwards of 60 brown bears around town (and many hundreds of black bears). One friend of mine once had a brown bear come up on his porch. To listen to some of these armchair experts, people should be getting mauled right and left. Yet the fact is, injuries from bears are extremely rare.
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