Forum Index > Trail Talk > Bear Spray failure
 Reply to topic
Previous :: Next Topic
Author Message
Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist



Joined: 07 Sep 2018
Posts: 2410 | TRs | Pics
Location: Seattle
Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist
PostTue Jul 19, 2022 11:21 pm 
I'd posted this same story in a bumped-up bear thread earlier today; a year-old incident that the Seattle Times also ran today. I figured it was a slow news day and the right season to repeat a cautionary tale for campers. The recommended distance for storing your food is a lot farther than I'd ever done. Guess I was lucky in the Canadian Rockies back in the day. rolleyes.gif

"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
timberghost
Member
Member


Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Posts: 1316 | TRs | Pics
timberghost
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 8:40 am 
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
RichP
Member
Member


Joined: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 5628 | TRs | Pics
Location: here
RichP
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 8:44 am 
I didn't need to read this thread as I'm headed out for a trip in griz country right now. eek.gif

jaysway, brewermd
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Songs2
Member
Member


Joined: 21 Mar 2016
Posts: 200 | TRs | Pics
Songs2
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 10:16 am 
Malachai Constant wrote:
I had heard the advice is to leave the area immediately after driving off the Bear with spray. It is not lethal and wears off, he will be back.
I have also read that the bear may return. Solo hikers are sometimes advised to, or choose to, carry 2 cans of bear spray for just such an eventuality. Joey Coconato, whom some here may know through his YouTube channel, MyOwnFrontier, has taken to carrying 2 cans when in top grizzly habitat and backpacking solo. Other tips I've picked up from his videos: take a 2 person tent, even if just for yourself, so that a bear scratching it or sitting on a piece of it doesn't contact you first thing. He likes to position the part of the tent where his head will be in a protected place, such as where downed trees intersect, to prevent bear from sitting on his head. A bear that is across the river from you and appears to be ambling back and forth, back and forth, bit by bit drawing closer to you, is not doing it coincidentally. Best to assume the bear has an intention, and act accordingly.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
CS
Member
Member


Joined: 04 Apr 2022
Posts: 176 | TRs | Pics
CS
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 10:17 am 
timberghost wrote:
You could always hope your in a lethal Helecopter crash first. https://www.newsweek.com/bears-eat-wealthy-couple-pilot-helicopter-crash-wilderness-1725875
Oh wow, they were in Kamchatka Peninsula. That place makes Alaska seem like civilized.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Randito
Snarky Member



Joined: 27 Jul 2008
Posts: 9495 | TRs | Pics
Location: Bellevue at the moment.
Randito
Snarky Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 10:32 am 
zimmertr wrote:
Good luck blasting a grizzly with a bulky long gun when you're startled and it's charging you down at 35mph.
My sister before retirement managed field biologists in Alaska for the feds. They have a bear defense training course that includes a bear cutout target mounted on a wagon that is drawn by cables toward the shooter at 35 mph. Most people fail to hit the target the first several sessions. Under her management over a couple decades they had one mauling.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
gb
Member
Member


Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 6303 | TRs | Pics
gb
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 10:57 am 
Eric Hansen wrote:
Does Stephen Herrero offer any thoughts on bear spray vs. a shotgun with slugs? I used to keep up with his research and writings but stopped about 15 years back. I'm not a gun person but I've often wondered what the odds were that a shotgun with slugs would actually kill a grizzly (with the first shot) before the bear was on you. Just seems like a lot of the encounters I've read about began very close in and it was only a few seconds before the bear closed the distance.
Herrero's statistics showed something like a 97% efficacy for bearspray and only a 50% efficacy when guns were used as deterrence. Herrero's various reports and statistical analyses are easy to find online by googling. JSTOR or Researchgate would be two such potential sources as they both deal with science and not hearsay.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
CS
Member
Member


Joined: 04 Apr 2022
Posts: 176 | TRs | Pics
CS
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 12:51 pm 
In the book In the Company of Bears I got a better sense of what a bear's life was like, and thinking of them more as individuals. If Dr. Bear was writing a Human Attacks book, it would be the same as Herrero's, most humans are safe and back away when they see you, but some stalk and shoot you. Somehow getting a sense that they are rational, and are known to help other bears, made them seem less random at least.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
timberghost
Member
Member


Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Posts: 1316 | TRs | Pics
timberghost
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 1:33 pm 
It also depends on the bear, the situation, and location. I have seen bears on Kodiak where they catch a scent of a human and seen them run up and over a mountain to get away. One very large over 10 ft squared bear came across where we walked 2 days prior https://www-newsweek-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.newsweek.com/bears-eat-wealthy-couple-pilot-helicopter-crash-wilderness-1725875?amp=1&_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16583315412643&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fbears-eat-wealthy-couple-pilot-helicopter-crash-wilderness-1725875 the scent and literally ran over a very large mountain looking to get away knowing a human was in the valley. But it's different if they smelled blood or ETC from a deer that was harvested.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Chief Joseph
Member
Member


Joined: 10 Nov 2007
Posts: 7677 | TRs | Pics
Location: Verlot-Priest Lake
Chief Joseph
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 1:51 pm 
My only encounter with a griz was as I said in the Bob Marshall and it ran away. First time to 3 fingers lookout there was a female black bear and cub feasting on berries a bit before Goat Flats, it paid us no mind and we moved on. While camping at a high mountain lake in the N Cascades I spotted a huge black bear in the valley below maybe a half mile away.....we watched it for a while and I yelled something and the bear took off at a dead run up a steep slope. For sure Moose are more dangerous and unpredictable. My daughter and I were hiking to the Roosevelt Grove of ancient cedars about 10 miles north of Priest lake, we came around a corner and suddenly I saw these very long legs in front of us. I though to myself, who would be riding a horse up here? Seconds later I realized it was a large bull moose! I let out a blood curdling scream and that moose was frickin' out of there, don the trail and soon out of site. We continued on the way the moose had gone down the trail to the cedar grove. In hind sight that was a very bad idea. Then one winter I was solo snowmobiling near PL and rounded a corner and came upon a smaller male moose in the trail and had no where to really turn around. So I let him go aways then proceeded down the trail. He would stop and snort at me and then continue on and luckily did not charge. After a half mile or so there was a wide spot in the trail where I was able to go around him.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Vertec
Member
Member


Joined: 08 Sep 2018
Posts: 159 | TRs | Pics
Vertec
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 4:09 pm 
zimmertr wrote:
Even police officers who are supposedly trained in high-stress close combat encounters miss 60-70% of their shots. (Pg. 43)
Not applicable to bears because bears don't shoot back. Bears are an entirely different threat. Also, the data cited is NYPD (law enforcement) 1999-2006. 16 year old data, not applicable to a wilderness setting. But since you bring it up, consider the Indiana mall incident last week where a civilian who stopped the threat "scored" an 80% hit rate... ... from 30 - 40 yards across a food court.

Out There, carrying the self-evident truth I am endowed by my Creator with unalienable rights of self-defended Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Chief Joseph
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
jinx'sboy
Member
Member


Joined: 30 Jul 2008
Posts: 927 | TRs | Pics
Location: on a great circle route
jinx'sboy
Member
PostWed Jul 20, 2022 6:01 pm 
FWIW: Back in the day - mid 80s - before going to a fire fighting assignment in the Alaskan bush country out on the Kobuk River, an orientation session in Fairbanks. I asked, “do you use bear spray up here?”. The person doing the orientation looked at me like I was an idiot, and handed me a sawed-off double barreled 12 ga, loaded with slugs. Every crew was issued the same weapon.

Chief Joseph
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
timberghost
Member
Member


Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Posts: 1316 | TRs | Pics
timberghost
Member
PostThu Jul 21, 2022 5:14 am 
My Kodiak guy never carried bear spray. He was a 40 + yr Kodiak veteran. He a pistol gap shot gun with the plug taken ou and alternated between slug and 00 buckshot for each round. He had an electric fence around his cabin and never had an issue. In the 40+ yrs of guiding he never had to discharge his gun at a bear but again Kodiak is a different situation.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
CS
Member
Member


Joined: 04 Apr 2022
Posts: 176 | TRs | Pics
CS
Member
PostThu Jul 21, 2022 8:33 am 
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/does-bear-spray-work/ TL;DR sounds like all the studies on spray and guns are flawed, and the data can’t be compared effectively. Pretty lame that “reputable” orgs came to conclusions that overstepped the studies’ data. And this interview.. oh boy... https://gearjunkie.com/camping/bears-safety-tips-bear-spray As far as deterrents go, when should people consider carrying bear spray? Bear Spray is good. I’m biased, because I published the test results in a peer-reviewed journal the first time. I thought, there must be a better way than shooting bears. Biologists were discussing the best caliber to carry with to avoid being killed by bears. As biologists, we shouldn’t be thinking like that. We should think, “how can we deter a bear.” And his paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237687613_Reactions_of_free-ranging_black_bears_to_capsaicin_spray_repellent To test the effectiveness of capsaicin on free-ranging bears and to determine if free-ranging bears tend to react aggressively to it, I visited campgrounds and garbage dumps in Minnesota and Michigan where black bears were reported to be taking food from people. I sprayed bears that attempted to take meat from a box beside me. Five adults (4 males, 1 female) were sprayed in the eye(s) with capsaicin solution at dusk or at night from a distance of 1.5 to 3 m. All immediately blinked hard, whirled away, and fled 7 to 20 m where they stopped and rubbed their eyes with their paws for up to a minute. Four of them then moved out of view, but a male weighing 200-225 kg returned and was sprayed 3 more times. He turned away from the second and third spray attempts, causing the spray to miss his eyes. After each miss he immediately turned back to the bait. The fourth spray again hit his eyes, and he left the area at a fast walk.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Vertec
Member
Member


Joined: 08 Sep 2018
Posts: 159 | TRs | Pics
Vertec
Member
PostThu Jul 21, 2022 12:42 pm 
CS wrote:
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/does-bear-spray-work/ TL;DR sounds like all the studies on spray and guns are flawed, and the data can’t be compared effectively. Pretty lame that “reputable” orgs came to conclusions that overstepped the studies’ data.
A must read article. Blows the “Bear spray is more effective than… [other]..” argument right out of the water. The most egregious faults are excluding failure to deploy incidents from the bear spray study, but including them in the firearm study. Reminds me of all the times I’ve seen people carrying bear spray with the zip tie still securing the safety. Also, including incidents of active bear management by wildlife “officials” in the bear spray study beings up an interesting point. Suggests we “common” folk should also be spraying even curious bears to condition them to avoid humans. Because we all must “do our part” to be good stewards, right?

Out There, carrying the self-evident truth I am endowed by my Creator with unalienable rights of self-defended Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
   All times are GMT - 8 Hours
 Reply to topic
Forum Index > Trail Talk > Bear Spray failure
  Happy Birthday noahk!
Jump to:   
Search this topic:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum