On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Don Baccus wrote:

>
> > Fortunately, that rarely happens. As for black
> >bears, I've read somewhere that their ability to produce large amounts of
> >saliva prevents capsicum from having any major effect.
>
> Since black bears mostly bluff and (in the statistic sense) rarely hurt or
> kill folks, if you're in grizzly country worry about griz.

A friend who was a ranger in a National Park in California said that
standard ranger protocol for getting Black Bears out of campgrounds was to
kick the bear. I guess it's different if you get between a mother and her
cubs, but in general, black bears are not a big threat.

Christopher E. Hill
Department of Zoology
University of Washington
P. O. Box 351800
Seattle, WA 98195-1800