Does bear spray work with black bears and what brand?

[Frank Deland]

Bear bells were meant for hiking along in wooded trail where you might come unexpectedly onto a bear and startle him/her so that he/she attacks out of fear and self-defense. The bell is supposed to alert the bear to your arrival, give it warning, so it will run away.

A friend came up on a bear in Maine feeding and from behind, not seeing my friend. My friend greeted the bear loudly. It spun around, stood up, then took off.

A Ranger in Glacier Park saw a feeding bear. The ranger rang his bell, the bear looked up and started to follow the noise of the bell. When the ranger stopped ringing the bell, the bear went back to eating. Ringing the bell again, same thing happened.

In a book about Grizzly attacks, the author found bear spray worked sometimes, but other times did not. He concluded that no deterrent worked every time.

Last month hikers in Sequoia NP, had a bear approach the campsite. They all made a lot of noise, shouting and banging pots. The bear circled around the campsite, but never got too close. They saw the bear next morning with cubs minding it own business.

[Laurence Beck]

Tad,

I want to hear the Grizzly stories…

Larry

[George Matthews]

My wife dropped me off at the Smokies on her way to visit her mother in Nashville. She laughed hard as I was getting out of the car at the trailhead because the the morning's downpour intensified. I declined her final offer to forget about my backpacking trip, gave her a kiss, and said I'd see her again in three days.

After a couple of hours hiking towards Campsite 24, the rain stopped. Believe it or not, I was enjoying it. The sound, the freshness, the solitude. I reached the campsite and was the only backpacker there. I chose a high, well drained site under a healthy tree. and set up my Henry Shires tarptent, pumped up my Exped DownMat 9, and spread out my JRB No Sniveller quilt. I wanted to be ready when the next storm when it arrived.

I boiled water using the Trappers Mug and Trail Designs Caldera Cone. Ate couscous and drank hot tea. I put my food and most everything else in my GoLite Pinnacle pack, put a plastic garbage bag over it, and then hoisted my pack up the bear cables. I'd seen plenty of bear scat and where bears had rooted around all over the area.

It was still daylight and I decided to lie down in my tarptent and look at my map. I closed the vestible on the tarptent. About twenty minutes later, I heard two or three backpackers hiking into the campsite. I was starting to dose off and thought I'd meet them later after they'd set up their camp. Then I heard them clapping. Bear probably, I thought.

Again I was almost asleep and I hear what sounded like one of them walking up to my tarptent. I figured one of them was coming over to warn me about the bear. I was lying on my back and stretched my head back to see the source of the oncoming steps.

What do I see? The silhouette of a bear on the tarptent vestible. The bear swiped its nose vertically up the vestible. I spun around and for a brief moment had only no-see-um and silicone-impregnated ripstop nylon between me and the bear. Fortunately, the bear upon hearing me proceeded to run away.

I came out of my tarptent and saw three backpackers a couple of camping spots above me. I walked up to meet them. They said they saw the bear and began clapping. The bear ran down to my camp, but they said they did not think anybody was in the tent. They said when the bear went up to my tent that they then heard me moving around inside it. They saw the bear run away.

The next morning as the other backpackers were leaving, we talked briefly and none of us heard or saw any more bears.

Three days later after my wife picked my up, I went by the Backcountry Office and mentioned the close encounter with the bear. One of the rangers said that there had been two unattended tents trashed by a bear recently at Campsite 24. That, in my opinion, explained the bear's behavior. The ranger asked me several questions and primarily wanted to understand if the bear was aggressive. We agreed that it was not aggressive because it ran away as sound as it hear me move around and based on three backpackers, my tarptent did appear unoccupied.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I'm thinking of picking up some pepper spray for upcoming trip in grizzly territory to make my wife (who is coming) feel better. Lugging an extra pound is hard to accept though. What do you guys think about using a smaller canister of dog spray? It seems like the same stuff but less of it. It seems like it would probably still be enough for one incident. They claim you get 10 seconds worth of spraying. Does anybody use this?

Link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/MACE-Muzzle-Dog-Repellent-Canine-Animal-Pepper-Spray-K9_W0QQitemZ230452507811QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item35a80a34a3

[Randy G]

I carry dog spray sometimes when running and I know I will encounter a problem dog. It barely works on dogs and I would not recommend it for bears at all. The range is minimal (6 – 8 feet) and although dogs do not like to be sprayed in the face with it, it does not incapacitate them. I'm sure you would not find one expert that would recommend carrying dog spray for bears even for peace of mind. If you had to use it, it would be worthless against a grizzly. If you truly want protection talk to people experienced in the area you will be hiking.

I recently encountered two separate black bears on a single hike in NW Pennsylvania. I never carry spray or any other deterrent. The first bear, although not totally fearful would not come within 75 meters of me. I slowly moved away as did it. The second bear bolted as soon as it saw me. It wanted nothing to do with me.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Thanks for the info on dog spray.

Do you know what size bear spray comes in? So far I've seen 16oz and 9oz sizes. Are these pretty much the two sizes out there or is there a smaller option?

[Ken Thompson]

Been sprayed with that, not gonna stop a bear.

[John Drollette]

Bear spray is under so much pressure that the recoil when fired is similar to a handgun

Sorry, no. I carried a 10.2oz cannister of Counter Assault for the first 800 miles of my 2006 CDT thru hike, in the stock nylon holster on the bottom V of where my shoulder strap meets my Granit Gear Virga. I practiced drawing and aiming until it was smooth. Out of curiosity, we discharged it in the desert when we left the Wind River Range, out of griz territory. Unlike an handgun, it doesn't kick at all. The range seemed to be somewhat less than the advertised 30ft. I caught some blowback and it wasn't too bad. Much less painful than the time I got CS dosed by the Czech police (long story).

On the other hand, when I am actually worried about bears, I select appropriate tools (500-mile Alaska MTB ride last summer):

ETA: That being said, I am relieved that there is starting to be some real data available that confirms the efficacy of bear spray. In may areas, I'd feel better with it than without.

I've treed a handful of black bears along the PCT and in Tahoe, but mamas and cubs need wide berth. Outside of Yosemite, they seem to respond well to posturing and thrown rocks. Almost every night before bed, I assemble a pile of about a dozen golf-ball+ sized rocks near my head. When a persistent black bear comes for a visit, the pile goes quick.

Mostly, situational awareness and a clean camp is more useful than any gimmick. If you see cubs, IMMEDIATELY look for the mama.

[Karple T]

I have had many encounters with Black Bears on the AT, and hike a lot in Shenandoah where I have run into 4-5 in one day at times. Shenandoah has the largest concentration of black bears in the US. The Rangers there sometimes use sling shots to scare away the bears from camp grounds. I have thought about carrying one for that but have not so far. I bang my walking stick on things as I go and talk loud with my wife and when we see them they are walking out of the area having heard us coming.

Black Bears are getting more aggressive in Shenandoah and in the last couple years they have had to shut down areas due to problem bears that have harassed hikers or campers
so I am thinking more about deterrents. That is knowing that a determined angry Bear will not be detoured by anything … but most would not be doing more than bluff charges. The spray would do more to make my wife feel comfortable than anything. For a lot of us carrying a deterrent will make the difference between being alone and having our female companion with us! My wife likes the idea of bear spray, though she has not been afraid of the bears we have come upon, she would feel safer with it.

[Ken Strayer]

I have no experience with bear spray, but I do have some first hand experience with dogs and bear encounters. First off, I would agree that a dog running loose has a fairly good chance of bringing the bear back to you if the dog has an encounter.

However, I always have my dog on a leash or on a tie out in camp. Every encounter I have had with a black bear on the trail has been from a distance of at least 100ft and as soon as the bear saw us it took off running. I have had probably close to 30 bear encounters at night at camp, every time my dog would usually be the first one to notice it and begin growling and barking and the bear would take off. If your dog was loose and ran after the bear, well that could be a different story.

I think dog's are very effective bear deterents. In fact new methods of bear relocation in california involve harassing captured problem bears with bear dogs and shotting them with rubber bullets as they run off….not sure I agree with the practice exactly, but it is effective at having bears associate humans, dogs, and loud sounds as being bad.

As always ymmv

[peter vacco]

Bear spray is under so much pressure that the recoil when fired is similar to a handgun

you can feel a leetle push, but it ain't a big deal.
a canadian 10.6oz spraycan will throw a pattern pattern roughly the size and length of a phone booth turned sideways.
still, if you judge the wind wrong, you (well … me actually) can almost miss.

but it does/did work. the smallish brown bear did not get blinded. all went well. and 5 feet is too close.

so why go naked ? at about 11oz with packstrap mountings, bear spray is easily the best peace of mind one is going to get.
works on dogs. might work on drunks too.

getting the can to where you want to walk, if it involves airplanes, can be a bit of a chore or felony.

[Dale Wambaugh]

I saw a ranger use an M-80 type fire cracker on a black bear in Olympic National Park. You know, a black bear can move really fast if scared– you don't want to be in the way :)

[Bob Gross]

The black bears of Yosemite National Park have the reputation of being some of the smartest bears around, and that's why things like bear canisters became the law.

For car campers, the black bears are a problem because they can be quite aggressive in going after food, or anything that smells like food, or anything that could be recognized as a food container. They routinely break open cars and do all sorts of damage, and that is why NPS has been so adamant about their campground food storage policies. Black bears there are not a physical threat to humans unless the humans do something incredibly stupid. "Hey, Johnnie, go stand by nice Mister Bear while I take your picture." Black bears are easily hazed away by NPS bear technicians, although they easily return to the scene of the crime if they think they can get away with it. When black bears become too much of a problem in the campgrounds, they are either removed or else removed and terminated. That's kind of a shame.

The bears in backpacker country are the same bears, but they operate with different tactics. They are "snatch and run" experts. You set down your food bag or open up your bear canister, turn your back for just a minute, and old Yogi shows up to put his nose down in there. So, they know where humans camp, they know what campfire smoke means, and they feel that it is their god-given duty as wild bears to go in there and get the goodies. NPS has designated most of Yosemite's backcountry for mandatory bear canisters. Experienced backpackers will treat a black bear almost like a hungry stray dog. It isn't likely to hurt you unless you do something stupid, but it can do a lot of damage in a hurry to backpacking gear.

The basic philosophy of NPS is to completely take away all motivation for the black bear to come into your camp. Once the bears realized that they could not crack open a bear canister of food, they quit trying.

I own bear spray, but I would never think of carrying it in Yosemite. The bears there just are not dangerous enough to require it. Now, the brown bears in Alaska… that was a completely different story. In some areas, they can be quite predatory toward humans, so consider a firearm, bear spray, or a bear flare, and that is on top of proper food storage.

A backpacker friend of mine was sleeping in his tent with his head next to the mosquito net mesh of the front door. He woke up and looked at the mesh. There was a black bear snout pressed against it. The guy instinctively punched the bear in the nose as hard as he could, and the bear went running and never returned.

When I return to Yellowstone, I will have my Counter Assault spray with me for the grizz. For places where there is no wildfire risk, I carry a bear flare. NPS in Yellowstone hates bear flares, and aircraft pilots in Alaska hate bear spray.

–B.G.–

[Anonymous]

"I saw a ranger use an M-80 type fire cracker on a black bear in Olympic National Park."

Yup. I ran a bear off in Vidette Meadows back in the late 70's using the smaller Chinese firecrackers that come braided in packs. It took half a dozen or so singles and then a Hail Mary toss of a whole pack to get him up and off the food bag he had dropped from a tree. He paced back and forth about 50 yards away while we built the fastest fire of my life and stayed up the rest of the night in shifts guarding our food. That was a confrontation that could have turned out badly, and I went down to Chinatown and upgraded to M-80's as soon as I got back to San Francisco. Wouldn't you know, I haven't had a run in with a bear since then; seen a few, but no food trouble.

[Bob Gross]

Tom, that technique was effective back in the 70's, but you would not want to do it now if there was a ranger around.

Once, a bear family of mom and two kids came very close to our food in Yosemite, so three of us chased the family off. We ran right at them, waved our flashlights at them, and barked like wild dogs. That seemed to have done the trick. Bears hate dogs.

The bears came back to the lake and hit every other campsite around the lake, but skipped ours.

–B.G.–

[Anonymous]

"Tom, that technique was effective back in the 70's, but you would not want to do it now if there was a ranger around."

I wouldn't have wanted to do it if there was a ranger around back then either. They've never had any sense of humor about that kind of ingenuity. What put an end to it for me initially was when they tightened up airport security due to a spate of hijackings. By then I had moved to Seattle and the thought of having a conversation with the airport Feds about my M-80's when my bag got pulled for inspection trumped my need for backcountry security, and I stopped carrying them. I just didn't think they'd understand. In the event, the M-80's weren't necessary. As a result of the incident I described in my previous post, along with one 3 years earlier, I got very careful about what kind of food I carried, where, when, and sometimes whether I cooked it, as well as where I camped. In the years since I have never come even close to a confrontation with a bear. I've seen a few, but that's about it. I'm a big believer in evasion as the best policy. Most of the places I get into don't have many, if any, bears, or people, for that matter. I've noticed the two tend to go together.

[Brian Camprini]

I'm not affiliated with this group but thought this was interesting. Barking might actually make a lot of sense…especially if you have your Black Mouth Cur bark up to snuff:

http://www.bbcc.org/Aversive/default.aspx

Using aversive conditioning as a tool to solve bear/human conflicts is not new, but there have been some recent developments that offer improved results. Aversive conditioning is simply creating a very negative experience for the offending animal, hoping that the negative experience will outweigh the positive rewards offered by the nuisance activity.

Nuisance bears have traditionally been captured at the site of the offense, immobilized, marked and weighed, and allowed to recover from the drugs. When released, the bears were hazed with rubber buckshot or pepper sprays and, in some cases, this worked well. However, many nuisance bears that were habituated to humans and either food or garbage, often continued their nuisance activity after capture and harassment. Often they would change location, but the offending activity persisted. As a result, several bears were killed by agency personnel or placed in zoos. Other bears were killed by motor vehicles because they were spending so much time in areas near humans.

Using dogs to haze bears had been discussed for years at BBCC gatherings. The discussions were dominated by what breed of dog would be best and how they would work in this region. The job requires a dog of sufficient size and athletic enough to move efficiently through the dense, swampy bear habitat of south Louisiana. An overly aggressive dog would likely get killed by a bear, so another requirement was for a dog with good temperament and excellent obedience. Hounds trained to hunt wild hogs were used on several occasions to haze bears with some positive results. Unfortunately, the hounds got so scattered over the swamps and marshland that it sometimes took several days to collect the dogs. This created another problem with the time required to work a nuisance situation, and so the search for another breed continued. The Blackmouth cur was the next candidate selected for use in aversive conditioning. The Blackmouth cur is a medium-sized dog that is very athletic, tractable, and aggressive. This breed is used as a stock and hunting dog that traditionally hunts hogs, squirrels, and raccoon.

The dogs are used in combination with the same aversive conditioning procedures employed on nuisance bears as before, but after the initial hazing with rubber buckshot, the dogs are released. Experienced dogs will catch the bear within about one hundred yards and either tree it or circle it on the ground, cutting off its escape when it tries to run. The “fight” involves a lot of barking and growling, with little to no actual contact. When the dogs are holding the bear at bay, a biologist can run up and usually get off another round of rubber buckshot to get the bear running again. The dogs will usually catch the bear again in another hundred yards or so and the process is repeated. This may happen three or four times before the dogs are called back to the handler.

The hazing is very intense for about fifteen minutes and then the bear is allowed to go about its business. The BBCC Conflict Management Team has been using the curs since 2002, and has found hazing bears with dogs to be extremely successful. When the dogs are properly trained, they can be utilized in a variety of situations because they can be called back if necessary. The dogs are also useful as ambassadors for the bear management program, where they can be taken to presentations to school groups and other educational opportunities with the public.

Rubber Buckshot Warning: The various brands of “less than lethal” rubber bullets, buckshot, and slugs, perform differently. Some are safe at close range and ineffective at greater distances. Others, effective at up to fifty yards, are dangerous at close range. Only trained personnel should be allowed to use these tools in dealing with wildlife management issues.

Pepper Spray Warning: If used improperly, the pepper sprayer might get sprayed, and the result is a very unpleasant experience. Quite a few biologists have inhaled the pepper mist intended for brother bruin. The BBCC Conflict Management Team doesn’t typically use pepper spray for the obvious reasons. And yes, we learned the hard way!

[Anonymous]

"Pepper Spray Warning: If used improperly, the pepper sprayer might get sprayed, and the result is a very unpleasant experience. Quite a few biologists have inhaled the pepper mist intended for brother bruin. The BBCC Conflict Management Team doesn’t typically use pepper spray for the obvious reasons. And yes, we learned the hard way!"

A huge +1

You don't always get to pick your shots, and if a bear comes at you from upwind, you are at risk if you're using pepper spray. If you think about it, you are most likely to surprise a bear if it is up wind from you, not down wind. This is one big reason I would never carry bear spray. If I ever felt threatened enough to need something like bear spray, I would choose to carry a firearm, probably a shotgun.

[Bob Gross]

On most of the commercial bear sprays, the trigger-head is oriented so that it would be very difficult to do a self-inflicted dose at close range. It is not a simple paint can. What is more likely is that you expend the entire spray can (maybe 10 seconds worth) in one direction toward the bear, but unfortunately that is into the wind, so the wind carries it right back into your face. That is why it is a good idea to get training with a bear spray, and learn to think for a second as you get it ready to fire.

–B.G.–

[Terry Trimble]

The only time I have seen bears up close is down town Mammoth and Yosemite. I have seen bear from a far when backpacking in the sierras. But they mostly leave you alone in less they have been domesticated and eat human food. Then they try and steal your food at night best thing store the bear can 10 to 25 yards from camp and store in rock formation with large rocks stacked on top of them and if they do come in to camp let them eat the food their after.

Your all correct about the dogs antagonizing the bears more than they help,Because it natural for a dog to hunt or inspect everything.

I have seen Cougars in Fallbrook ,Ca were I lived but people always shoot them in a avocado grove hunt when sighted.
A old lady back about a decade ago was mauled in the Laguna mountains of San Diego county hiking alone. People were freaking out about for at least a year.

[Bob Gross]

"best thing store the bear can 10 to 25 yards from camp"

It depends on the maximum flash range of your camera. You want to be able to look out the doorway of your shelter and snap it.

–B.G.–

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