Subject: RE: Bears and Pepper Spray
Date: Feb 21 09:58:13 1998
From: Don Baccus - dhogaza at pacifier.com


At 10:54 PM 2/20/98 -0900, Andrew & Rebecca Sorensen wrote:

>True, I did not give you much to go on, but this guide has been at the biz
>for many, many years. That adds up to many experiences with the brown
>bear, and most likely has more life experience to draw upon than the
>average person, even some experts. Regardless of our personal views of
>hunting, He knows his stuff too. (He is very quick to point out that he
>believes a cow moose with a calf can be much more dangerous than even a
>wounded bear!) Just as you trust your expert, I highly regard this man's
>outdoor abilities. He doesn't trust pepper spray for one major reason.
>Chris Maack mentioned it earlier - the cans are less than reliable. If
>they do spray, I'm sure they can be effective. But if they don't, you may
>as well toss it at 'em. I once purchased a very large can of spray, tested
>it at home the very next day and got nothing more than a minor squirt of no
>more than 10 feet. I would have had to hit the critter in the eyeball for
>it to do any good. The store was not happy about replacing it either,
>thinking I was pulling a fast one on them. Needless to say, I don't trust a
>can of pepper spray (although a firearm can misfire too).

Everything I've seen explicitly recommends testing pepper spray cans before
depending on them.

Herrero's point regarding grizzly and firearms is that the level of expertise
required, along with the weight of firepower, is extremely high. He cites
many cases of experienced firearms users being unable to knock a bear down.
A wounded grizzly is a bear which is not only dangerous, but pissed off.

I'm not anti-hunting, nor is Herrero. His opinion of the effectiveness of
firearms is based on his studying of actual encounters with folks who have
firearms and are experienced with them. He himself has had his life saved
by a Mountie marksman, when charged by the largest grizzly bear ever recorded
in the Canadian Rockies (which had already killed a couple of fisherman).

However, he makes it clear that if he'd been shooting rather than the
marksman,
he'd be toast.

He does devote an entire subchapter of his book to firearms - proper choice of
weapon and round, proper place to aim, etc. Again, though, stressing that
most
folks underestimate the level of expertise required to use a firearm
effectively
against a griz.

The main reason I trust Herrero's work rather than your guide's anecdotal
experience is due to the fact that he's devoted much of his life to studying
bear-human interactions, is a recognized expert, and has been key in changing
management policies towards bears particularly in National Park situations.

Your guide is saying "pepper spray doesn't work because I don't trust it".
He's
not saying "it doesn't work because I've tried it". That's hardly a strong
argument.

(Herrero's book predates pepper spray, BTW - I'm sure his opinion will be
unchanged,
though, i.e. that avoidance of close encounters with griz is the best
strategy).

>We've had some pretty nasty occurrences with black bears here in Alaska,
>and those 'statistical' occurrences, though small, do still cause severe
>injury.

Sure. But the pattern tends to be very different. Most black bear attacks
center around food. An old aquaintance, who now lives in New Zealand, worked
on fire crews in Alaska for several seasons. Black bears were much more of
a problem, especially out in the tundra where they had no way of hanging
food when they only had time to bivvy in a hurry when dropped to fight
a fire. They shot black bear which refused to respond to harassment more
than once.

But, a black bear is unlikely to charge a mile after sniffing you just
because it's guarding a bag of Doritos. Grizzly do that when guarding
a carcass.

The latter type of attack is hard to prevent or guard against, indeed Herrero
pretty much suggests you concentrate on the fact that you're more likely
to die driving to wherever you're going :) There are just some kinds of
griz attacks you can't avoid or really defend yourself well against.

Black bear attacks fit a food-related pattern that you can much more easily
prevent - usually by good food and especially garbage management. And if
you're subject to one of those very rare (about 1.5 per year, according to
his data) predation attacks by a black bear, a stout defense usually succeeds,
even without a weapon.

>>Evolution in action!

>Not evolution, rather stupidity

Cleaning up the gene pool, killing stupidity, leading to a more intellegent
populace - "evolution in action!". No, not correct, actually, it's a quote
from a very right-wing physicist who writes really, really bad science
fiction,
Jerry Pournelle.

>As to the sympathy aspect, I hate to see anyone get chewed up, broke up,
>messed up, or killed regardless of how it occurred (even the experts get
>into bad situations.) I hate to see anyone learn the hard way.

Of course. However, from a personal point of view, I'm the type of person
who likes to be prepared and therefore am much more interested in statistics
involving people who are also prepared.

>
>>This is a classic griz kill scenario - a bear surprised too close (in its
>>humble mind) to run. Griz with cubs and griz guarding carcasses are other
>>such scenarios. In essence, when griz feel they need to defend something
>>(and perhaps the denning site fits their "need to defend" criteria?) they
>>attack, and due to their size vs you or I, win. Quickly. No contest. One
>>or two blows.
>
>Yep, pretty typical, except for the fact that this particular event is
>unusual in that this occurred in the dead of winter.

Wow, that IS unusual, very strange. And, being unprepared for a bear attack
at that time is certainly understandable.

> I believe that has
>never happened before in Alaska, at least thats what the experts are
>saying. I would hate to be in that situation regardless of my choice of
>defense. In this case, I don't believe anyone was carrying any type of
>deterrent - they didn't think it was necessary.

Sure. Was it a sick bear? This seems very likely. The bear should've
been enjoying a deep sleep if it were winter, though I know black bear
sometimes get up and wander around for short periods in winter in mild
areas like Oregon.

>Our local outdoor writer would beg to disagree. He had a bear on top of
>him before he knew what hit him. The only thing that saved him was his
>ability to maneuver his .44 enough to unload it into the brown bear's belly
>that was busy chewing on him. Without the gun, he may have not walked out
>of the woods that day.

Pepper spray in the nose would've probably had the same effect.

Again, though, there are exceptions to any generalization, and you've provided
one anecdotal exception. There are cases of people's lives being saved by
being ejected from a car during a collision - if they were wearing seatbelts
they'd be dead. This is, however, an exception to what normally happens, and
I for one wear my seatbelt, rather than depend on having the kind of accident
where ejection is preferable (despite my dad being someone who's experienced
such an accident).

>>Oh, Herrero is one of the leading griz experts in Canada, and stood next
to a
>>dismounted Mountie who dropped the largest griz (not brown, but interior
griz
>>still in the 1000+ lb range) measured in interior Canada as it came to
them in
>>full charge, after having killed fishermen outside Banff. He knows his
shit.
>
>This doesn't sound like your typical grizzly event. And I noticed they
>went armed with more than pepper spray ;o)

Predates pepper spray. And he went armed with more than a firearm - he went
armed with a highly trained Mountie who was not only well-versed in firearms,
and armed with a sufficiently high-caliber weapon, but was well-versed in the
subtle art of dropping a griz charging at close distance at 35 mph, where you
only get one chance in practice. If you don't drop the bear, you'll have a
wounded one on you in moments. He used the break-the-clavicle-shot,
guaranteed
to bring any bear down and relatively easy to learn.

This is kind of Herrero's point - if you're not an expert in firearms, don't
carry one - carry an expert! On horseback, far far safer (though impractical
in much of remote Alaska).



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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