Another aspect of arrogance, is totally ignoring the vast preponderance of evidence that bear spray is FAR MORE effective on bears than a handgun.
Really?
I'd appreciate you citing some sources for that.
Doc, check out the current issue of "Sports Afield". There is an article that discusses a recent report that was co-authored by five experts in the field of Bear Defense. They studied 269 incidents involving bear/human conflicts in Alaska over a 26 year period.
I found the article very interesting, but I doubt if it will change the minds of many people here, most of which have never seen a grizzly bear in the wild.
I'll check it out, if I can find it on the newsstands... but keep in mind that I now live in West Texas, where the more popular outdoors mags run along the lines of
Helicopter Hoghunter and
Dynamite-Fishing Digest... so I might not find a copy easily...
But the story you describe is probably based on the Herrero et al. study.
Like I said, I'm a confirmed pepper spray guy in bear country, regardless whether black or grizzly. Studies show it works most of the time, and any encounter with a bruin that leaves him/her and me alive is a win/win as far as I'm concerned. But I've had to sling lead twice in this lifetime on bruin and as far as I'm concerned there is NO replacement for displacement. As in, large projectiles displacing large volumes of cardiovascular organs in the target organism.
