I am in agreement with most of what has been said on this thread. If interested you should check out these two papers published by Tom Smith, et al:
Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska, 2012.
Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, 2008.
Both are in the Journal of Wildlife Management and can be found on Google Scholar. Below I will paraphrase what I think are the most important findings in this study:
In the firearms study they found that there was no difference in outcome between people that used their guns and people that had a gun but did not use it…Interesting. As well, 56% of bear and gun-armed-people incidents resulted in injury. Compare that to 2% of bear and pepper spray-armed-people incidents resulting in injury, none of which required hospitalization (in the second paper). 100% of people that had to use bear spray walked away with their lives. Gun armed people were able to kill 61% of bears, however, “Once a bear charged, odds of firearm success decreased nearly 7-fold…” (first paper).
It seems obvious to me that it is easier and safer (for us and the bears) to carry pepper spray instead of a gun. You just have to get over the John Wayne thing, I’ve been there. I’ve worked a number of seasons in the Canadian Rockies on cougar and wolf studies, and there’s not much more to make a guy feel tough as carrying around a short barrel, pistol grip shotgun with a folding metal stock and 8 rounds in the magazine. Truth of the matter is I was nowhere near prepared, mentally, for an encounter that would require the use of such a shoulder bruising weapon. 7 years later I’ve had a lot more experience with bears, lions, and wolves, and I am better at reading their body language now. I am more confident now without a gun because I know how an animal reacts when it is signaling its intent of not attacking, but instead bluffing, and I know that I have to stand my ground and not run.
That being said, everything changes when your in close to a big animal. This past season I had a number of encounters with black bears while hiking into my ambush location. When the moon was new and the night was black I had to navigate through a series of deer oak stands (a short oak bush), and in the pitch black I stumbled into a few bears. There’s nothing to get your heart racing like a bear whoofing at you 10 yards away and you can’t see him! At those moments I decided to scare the deer away and announce myself to the woods, and all 3 times those bears left the area.
Its important to know what you’re getting into. Just like packing for the cold weather, you have to be prepared for a close encounter with large animals. But I would never trade a single, heart beating moment for mountains free of large predators. It keeps life exciting to have these predators around.
preston
