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https://www.outsideonline.com/2401248/does-bear-spray-work

Fact #1: Bear spray is 98 percent effective.

Fact #2: Your odds of being injured by a bear while carrying a firearm are the same as if you’re carrying no defense at all.

I’ve always taken the scientific studies that arrived at those two conclusions as gospel. And I’ve written articles repeating their findings while arriving at the invariable conclusion that bear spray is better than a firearm when it comes to defending against a bear attack. But you know what? I was wrong.

“There was no thought of comparing the two [studies], though some do that,” says Tom Smith, who authored both reports, titled the “Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska” and “Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska.”

Yet many people—including me, obviously—have compared the results of those two studies. And that, according to Smith, was never his intention.

Entirely Different Methodologies
Read beyond the results of the two studies and you’ll see that, despite similarities in subject matter and titles, they actually cover two very different scenarios.

The bear-spray study includes 83 incidents spanning from 1985 to 2006 in which the deterrent was employed. Of those incidents, 50 involved brown bears—on 31 occasions, the bear was curious or seeking food, while the remaining 18 cases involved an aggressive bear. There were only nine studied instances where a brown bear charged a human.

Twenty-four of the people in the bear-spray study were hiking when they encountered a bear. Twenty-one were wildlife officials engaged in bear management. The rest were doing a variety of the usual outdoor activities, including photography and fishing. None were hunting.

I asked Smith to clarify the nature of bear-management incidents in which bear spray was used. Was the use of the spray premeditated and intended to alter the behavior of the bears involved? “These were largely intentional hazings, not surprise-encounter-type situations,” he says.

In contrast, the firearms study “compiled information on bear attacks,” with 269 incidents between 1883 and 2009 selected, notably excluding Alaska’s own Defense of Life and Property (DLP) records, as studied by Sterling Miller in this paper. Smith and his coauthors acknowledge the effect this exclusion had on the study’s findings, writing: “Because bear-inflicted injuries are closely covered by the media, we likely did not miss many records where people were injured…. if more incidents had been made available through the Alaska DLP database, we anticipate that these would have contributed few, if any, additional human injuries.” The study states that including that data would have improved the reported success rates for firearms.

I asked Smith to explain why the DLP records were excluded from his firearms study, when they seem to so obviously represent a large amount of data on firearms efficacy. “All of the records cited in Miller’s paper were missing from the files, as though they had never been returned after they completed their analysis,” he explains, also noting that state officials denied him access to more recent records, due to privacy concerns. Does Smith think the results would have been different had he gained access to the DLP data? “The main value isn’t in the percentages reported but in taking a look at why firearms failed to protect people,” he says. The point of “Efficacy of Firearms” wasn’t to arrive at a conclusion on whether or not firearms work but, rather, to analyze the reasons why they didn’t—“poor aim, no time to use them, jammed, etc.,” elaborates Smith.

“Comparing the two studies is like comparing the injury rate for people picking up apples to the injury rate for people picking up live hand grenades,” says Dave Smith, a naturalist who has worked in Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali, and Glacier Bay National Parks and who has authored two books on surviving dangerous encounters with wildlife. It makes no sense to compare bear encounters where bear spray was employed with actual bear attacks, he says. There’s another flaw in the data: incidents in which users were unable to access their bear spray in time were excluded from samples, while users who experienced malfunctions with, or were otherwise unable to employ, their firearms were included, since that was the point of that study.

Like-for-Like Results
Diving into Tom Smith’s two studies, we can uncover some data similar enough to merit a limited comparison.

The bear-spray study looked at 14 close encounters with aggressive brown bears. Of those, the spray was successful at stopping the bear’s aggressive behavior in 12 incidents. The firearms study found that 31 of 37 handgun users were successful at defending themselves from an aggressive bear attack. That’s an 85 percent success rate for bear spray, and 84 percent for handguns.

The bear-spray research included nine brown bear charges where the spray was successful at stopping the charge three times. Alaska’s DLP reports (which primarily involve firearms) from 1986 to 1996 include data on 218 brown bear charges. Those same reports put total human injuries caused by brown bears in DLP incidents at eight, plus two human deaths. If we assume that all ten of those injuries or deaths were a part of those 218 charges (an unlikely but worst-case scenario), then the success rate it finds for firearms in brown bear charges is over 95 percent.

I asked Tom Smith if it was valid to conclude that the studied effectiveness of bear spray in brown bear charges is just 33 percent. “That’s what you would conclude from that data,” he says, before going on to point out that the sample size is very small. “Importantly, protracted mauling did not occur,” he says. “Whether that’s due to the spray or simply due to the vagaries of bear attacks is an open question.”

The Trouble with Numbers
Thirty-three percent is very far from that 98 percent efficacy rate so widely cited. And it’s an especially problematic number if we accept that firearms can be demonstrated to have a success rate of between a 76 percent (in a worst-case scenario, as presented in “Efficacy of Firearms”) and 96 percent (as is the case in Alaska’s DLP data or that compiled by firearms writer Dean Weingarten).

Conflating the results of Tom Smith’s two studies has informed everything from public opinion to public policy, and more importantly, the resulting conclusion guides bear-attack survival advice that’s distributed by governments, taught in classes, and marketed by makers of bear spray. If the conclusion that bear spray is more effective than firearms is wrong, then the entire way in which we’ve approached coexisting with the brown bear is also wrong.

So is it? I think it just presents a more limited conclusion than the one we’ve all chosen to believe, leading to an unfortunately narrow understanding of our relationship with bears. “The appearance that bear spray outperforms firearms was not the focus of our work,” says Tom Smith. “We wanted simply to highlight the pros and cons of each and let individuals decide how they best could stay safe in bear country.”

While “Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray” sends a mixed message on the effectiveness of bear spray in aggressive brown bear encounters—and a very bad message about its usefulness during a brown bear charge—it does show that the spray is enormously effective at deterring brown bears when they’re simply curious. Of note here is the conclusion in “Efficacy of Firearms” that “No bears were killed when firearms were not used.” Bear spray gives users a nonlethal way to influence the behavior of a brown bear before it risks human life.

You’ll note throughout this article my careful delineation of results by bear species. That’s because the bear spray’s efficacy was largely studied on brown bears; results on polar bears are largely from use in hazing, while another study found that bear spray isn’t terribly effective on black bears. The 2010 study “Does Aversive Conditioning Reduce Human-Black Bear Conflict?” found that methods like chasing, rock throwing, or shooting black bears with nonlethal rubber shotgun slugs were as effective as, if not more effective than, pepper spray. Conversely, Tom Smith has demonstrated elsewhere that polar bears, often feared as human predators, are the least likely of all three species to engage in conflict with humans.

What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us

In 1998, researchers at the University of Calgary, in Canada, published “Field Use of Capsicum Spray as a Bear Deterrent.” It analyzed 66 field uses of bear spray between 1984 and 1994 and found that, in 15 of 16 close encounters with aggressive brown bears, bear spray was effective in stopping the bear’s unwanted behavior—a 94 percent success rate. But read closer, and it’s apparent that in six of those cases, the bear hung around and continued to act aggressively. In three of those 16 close encounters, the bear attacked the human after being sprayed, despite receiving what the study refers to as, “a substantial dose of spray to the face.” Interpret this data differently, and in a worst-case scenario, the demonstrated effectiveness occurs in seven of the 16 incidents—a 44 percent success rate. This study did not compare these results either to the efficacy of firearms or with no defense method at all. The study did find that the spray was effective in 20 of 20 encounters with curious bears.

The bottom line is that no study has ever attempted to compare the effectiveness of bear spray to that of firearms. All studies are limited both by the outright rarity of bear attacks and the inability to recreate them in a controlled environment. We’re parsing an incredibly small number of encounters influenced by a huge number of variables, then trying to arrive at definitive conclusions. The best we can do is compare disparate data sets, applying our own subjective criteria to try and arrive at an inadequate conclusion.

Yet in public opinion, media reports, and public-safety messaging, we have an overwhelming impression that bear spray is the one-stop solution to safely recreating in bear country. Dave Smith calls this, “propaganda” and says he fears that it leads to misinformation and misunderstanding about what it takes to stay safe around bears.

Tom Smith states, again, that he would not compare the two studies—“Efficacy of Firearms” and “Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray”—directly. Yet a press release from Brigham Young University, where he works as an associate professor, did conflate results from the two studies, leading to stories in media outlets like The New York Times that conclude “A rifle apparently doesn’t work as well as a canister of red pepper spray.”

We Need Data-Based Bear-Safety Guidelines
My entire purpose for writing this article is to illustrate that the exaggerated effectiveness of bear spray is getting in the way of more important advice on bear safety. Here in Bozeman, Montana, just north of Yellowstone, it’s common to see people being told to carry bear spray any time they go on a hike, but almost always, the advice stops there. And while the spray may be effective at deterring a curious bear, it cannot be shown to have the ability to effectively stop an actual bear attack. Something more is needed.

Is that something more a firearm? “If you’re competent, then a firearm is a valuable, time-tested deterrent,” says Tom Smith. He goes on to reference the case of Todd Orr, who was famously mauled twice by the same bear here back in 2016. Despite employing the spray, the bear still managed to attack Orr, then later stalked and attacked him again. “Bears accurately shot don’t have that option,” says Smith. “Game over.”

But user competency is the largest determining factor in the successful use of a firearm. “When a person is competent with firearms—and I mean competent under pressure—it is an effective deterrent I highly recommend,” he says. “Conversely, those with little to no firearm experience shouldn’t rely on a firearm to save them from a close encounter with a bear.”

He recommends getting training if you intend to carry a gun. “However, even that same firearm-competent person would do well to carry bear spray also,” the researcher states. Smith highlights bear spray’s ease of use and portability as the reasons for that, as well as its effectiveness in nonlethal encounters.

But any talk of bear spray or firearms tends to get in the way of advice on how to avoid conflict with bears in the first place. It’s Smith’s 2018 study “Human-Bear Conflict in Alaska: 1880–2015” that comes to the most effective, actionable conclusions. It looks at the human variables involved in bear attacks, and from those we can glean some truly eye-opening information.

That study found that the kind of habitat in which you encounter a bear is a major determining factor on the likelihood of an attack. “The poorer the visibility, the more likely bears were to engage with people, presumably because of an inability to detect them until very close,” it states. It also notes that human rescuers had a success rate of over 90 percent at terminating maulings and were only mauled themselves in less than 10 percent of those rescues.

There’s one more surprisingly effective piece of advice that comes from the 2018 study: travel in groups. “The larger the group, the less likely to be involved in a confrontation,” it finds.

“To the best of my knowledge, I have not seen an instance where two or more persons have remained grouped, whether standing their ground or backing from a bear, that the bear made contact,” says Tom Smith. “That seems an important piece of advice.”

So what’s the conclusion here? To me, this isn’t an argument for or against guns or for or against bear spray. It’s an argument that, despite the presence of deterrents, dealing with an aggressive bear encounter does not involve any sure outcomes. Rather than beginning and ending the conversation with a false statement about bear spray’s efficacy, we should instead acknowledge that recreating safely in bear country requires training and knowledge—not dogma.

I'm too lazy to type out the whole bear spray and bells interwoven in the shoelaces joke, but this would be a good place for it.

It's the thought that counts?

My wife carries the bear spray and I carry the Glock and sometimes my Marlin GG. With my stuff I don't have to check the wind. Have never had to use either but will have 30 days of opportunity starting the 21st of this month



mike r

I carry .44 or .454 bear spray, to each their own. I believe the bear spray vs gun numbers are BS and contrived to sell bear spray. Your just not going to stop a bear in attack mode with pepper spray..

I stay away from bears. Works well so long as some twit doesn't want to bring back the prairie grizzly.

Felt the same way earlier. Suppose it depends on how pissed the bear is, like trying to fence cattle where there's no graze.

I'd rather have bear spray than nothing. But I don't own any bear spray.

Reading the article is worth the time. It's a real education. If you are going to be around bears, the education is helpful.

Me either, and sure wont while bowhunting, there's a damn 500lb black bear and wild boar up in my honey hole this year, +p 45 acp and heavy loaded 10mm both with Lehigh penetrators is as light as im willing to go, never had time, inclination or interest in 'anything' aerosol.

Way back when I was foolish enough to camp in big bear country, I used to carry a 7.5" Ruger Superblackhawk .44 mag in my backpack loaded up with a hard cast version of Elmer's load. (Lyman 429421 over 22 grains of 2400) It had a 2.5 lb trigger and I could shoot it. (My handgun skills have diminished markedly since then.)

A big Griz might have et me anyway back then,......but he would have a bad time digesting me with his guts rearranged in the manner that 6 rounds of Elmer's medicine is wan to do.

I've only hunted in Griz country four times: three times in Idaho and once in Wyoming. As I was elk hunting, I was carrying my old tried-'n-true Ruger 77 in .338 Win. Mag. But I also had my S&W 57 in .41 Mag. with 265 grains Beartooth Bullets hard cast ... just in case I needed to set aside my rifle to clean an elk, or to wear while cooking in my wall tent., gathering firewood, or water. I did not see a Griz, but we did see some very large tracks.

I don't have any bear spray but I know a couple of yuppie hikers here who claim they always carry bear spray but have not used it. To each his own, I say.

L.W.

Rarely do the winds in Aleutian Hell slow down enough to consider bear spray. Besides, I've obtained great results loading their asses with Remington Nitro Steel. It's not just for ducks anymore. Even if they come back, they become very wary of humans.

The National Park Rangers are advising hikers in Glacier National Park and other Rocky Mountain parks to be alert for bears and take extra precautions to avoid an encounter.
They advise park visitors to wear little bells on their clothes so they make noise when hiking. The bell noise allows bears to hear them coming from a distance and not be startled by a hiker accidentally sneaking up on them. This might cause a bear to charge. Visitors should also carry a pepper spray can just in case a bear is encountered. Spraying the pepper into the air will irritate the bear's sensitive nose and it will run away. It is also a good idea to keep an eye out for fresh bear scat so you have an idea if bears are in the area. People should be able to recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat. Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.

Here is the whole article..... I highlighted the parts that I thought summed it up.

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- When various far-left ecology and animal rights groups such as the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, submitted a petition, calling for the mandatory carry of bear spray by hunters, it made national news. The petition was submitted to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission and others. The petition claimed that “Studies show that bear spray is far more effective than firearms.”

That claim is not correct.
The petition was written about in several Idaho outlets, and nationally.

The Commission turned down the request that the carry of bear spray by hunters be mandatory. From lmtribune.com:

The commission turned down a request from environmental groups that it create a rule that would require hunters in grizzly bear habitat near Yellowstone National Park to carry bear spray. Commissioners said the rule would be overbearing and difficult to enforce, and agreed with agency officials who said education about recreating in grizzly bear country would be more effective.

The coverage of the Commission turned down the petition was far less extensive.

Dave Smith, author of Backcountry Bear Basics: The Definitive Guide to Avoiding Unpleasant Encounters, has done significant work explaining how the carry of bear spray by hunters is not effective and can be counterproductive. Dave wrote a letter to the Idaho Fish and Game Department, IFGD, to educate them about the problems involved.

Dave's letter deserves a wider audience. Dave graciously gave permission for me to use it in this article. Dave explains the problems with hunters relying on bear spray for protection from grizzly bears. He carefully explains why the bear spray and firearm studies about defense against bears do not show that bear spray is more effective. I have placed some of Dave's words in bold for emphasis:

Bear Spray Hoax: IFGD Betrays Hunters

I’m pleased the Commission recommends denying a petition that would require hunters in grizzly country to carry bear spray. But the petition is not being denied for the right reason: When a grizzly charges a hunter with a rifle after a classic surprise encounter at close range, bear spray will not keep a hunter safe. IDFG must prepare hunters to use an adequate rifle quickly and effectively.

In 1991, a Hunter/Grizzly Bear Interactions Task Team (that included U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen) told the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee that bear spray has “minimal usefulness in trail encounters with bears at close range due to the difficulty of effective use.”

Bob Wharff, executive director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that bear “spray isn’t the answer for every encounter, especially when it requires hunters to drop their guns when there’s little time to react. You’re talking milliseconds. It’s illogical that you’re going to set your gun down and get your pepper spray.”

Trina Jo Bradley, vice-president of the Marias River Livestock Association, said “Let’s just think about how we carry ourselves when we’re hunting. I carry a large caliber rifle in my hands, usually with a bullet in the chamber and the safety on. I can easily raise my rifle and fire if I see the game I am hunting, or if a bear attacks. Why in the world would I put down the firearm that I’ve used over and over to grab a can of bear spray?

It’s clear a hunter carrying a rifle cannot use bear spray in a safe or timely manner during a surprise encounter with a grizzly. IDFG and other agencies acknowledged this in 1991. But on September 1, 1999, these agencies did an about face on bear spray when U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service news release announced: “Outfitters And Guides Develop Safety Class To Prevent Bear Attacks.”

The news release said, “During the past year, over 200 outfitters and guides in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado have been trained to safely share the backcountry with bears.”

Were the outfitters and guides taught to use an adequate firearm effectively? No. “Course presenters discourage the use of firearms to mitigate bear attacks, because the practice has resulted in much greater frequency and severity of injuries to people involved [than bear spray]. The reliability and safety of pepper spray over other methods of deterrence has also been promoted by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.”

No data or references were provided to substantiate this claim. Nevertheless, these agencies adopted a de facto policy of discouraging firearm use, and promoting bear spray. The results have been disastrous. As the environmentalists’ bear spray petition notes, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team found that “54% of all injuries inflicted on humans by grizzly bears [in the Yellowstone region] involved hunters.”

In response to the environmentalists’ petition, Toby Broudreau said, “the Department already has a Bear Education Program within grizzly range in Idaho. That program helps inform hunters on bear spray use and benefits.”

That program does not teach hunters how to use bear spray with each of the six field carries for long guns. That program does not provide hunters with accurate, meaningful information about bear spray and firearms research. If you keep hyping bear spray—and use that as an excuse for not teaching hunters how to use an adequate rifle quickly for self-defense—you guarantee the carnage inflicted on hunters since 1999 will continue.

A 2008 study on the Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska said, “In 96% (69 of 72) of bear spray incidents, the person's activity at the time of was use reported. The largest category involved hikers (35%), followed by persons engaged in bear management activities (30%), people at their home or cabin (15%), campers in their tents (9%), people working on various jobs outdoors (4%), sport fishers (4%), a hunter stalking a wounded bear (1%), and a photographer (1%).”

Given that the purpose of stalking a wounded bear is to kill it, non-lethal bear spray was the wrong tool for the job. The study did not provide additional information about this mysterious incident. A 1998 bear spray study did not provide any information about the activity of people who used bear spray. So research tells us hunters carrying a rifle don’t use bear spray, and common sense tells us why: Hunters can’t use bear spray because they’re already carrying a rifle.

Bear spray advocates focus on the overall success rate from Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska: 3 people were injured during 75 incidents. Of 175 people present during 72 incidents, just 3 were injured. Bear spray advocates never inform hunters that 3 of 9 people who sprayed charging grizzly bears were injured.

Bear spray advocates have repeatedly made the indefensible claim that research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm. One, they’re claiming that research on bear spray use by non-hunters (who are not carrying a firearm) proves hunters (who are carrying a firearm) should use bear spray. That does not make sense.

Two, there have been two interrelated studies on bear spray, and two studies on guns vs. bears. Bear spray advocates are really saying, if you compare the results of one bear spray study to the results of one dissimilar study on guns, bear spray wins. But Field Use of Capsicum Spray As a Bear Deterrent/Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska used different methodologies than Efficacy of Firearms For Bear Deterrence in Alaska. It is unethical to compare the two studies, because of the different dynamics involved.

In addition, you’ve got to be totally unprincipled to pretend a 1999 study on the Characteristics of Nonsport Mortalities to Brown and Black Bears and Human Injuries from Bears in Alaska does not exist. After reviewing 1,036 incidents from 1986 to 1996 when people killed bears in defense of life or property (DLP), the authors of the 1999 study wrote, “Most of the persons shooting brown bears or black bears in DLP circumstances indicated that no human injury occurred (98.5% for brown bears and 99.2% for black bears).”

Bear spray advocates deny the existence of the 1999 study because it does not advance their cause. “Research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm” is not a factual statement based on research; it’s a baseless propaganda slogan. To provide for the safety of big-game hunters in grizzly country, IDFG must teach hunters how to use an adequate firearm quickly and effectively.

Dave does not address a basic premise of the advocates for the use of bear spray. The premise is that in a bear human conflict, it is better if the bear is not killed. The purpose of bear spray seems more to protect the bear than to protect the human.

Bear and human conflicts are rare. Most bears avoid humans. If all the bears that threaten humans were killed, it would not harm bear populations.

One major advantage of firearms over bear spray is the bear is usually killed.

Bears that attack humans should be killed. Bears that are killed are not able to attack other humans. They are no longer a threat. If bears are not killed during the attack, they often must be tracked down and killed at some expense and danger.

Both grizzly and black Bear populations are increasing in North America. Bear populations will continue to expand, utilizing human developed food sources, as long as humans allow them to expand. The grizzly bear population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has continued to increase, even though about 5% of the grizzly population is killed in bear/human conflict every year. Humans must kill bears to keep the bear population inside acceptable limits.

It is poor management to attempt to prevent a bear attacking a human from being killed so that another permit to kill a bear can be issued to a hunter in the necessary bear hunting season.

The idea that it is important to save the lives of bears who are threatening humans is a bad one. It is a false economy.

Bear spray has benefits. It is useful to people who are afraid of firearms, or who do not wish to develop the modest skill necessary to use them to defend against bears. Bear spray is useful where firearms are difficult to obtain, such as for American tourists in Canada. Bear spray does not present a lethal danger to bystanders, except as it may inhibit their own defenses, as it did with Tom Sommers.

Bear spray should not be mandated for people who are already carrying a gun to hunt big game. The idea that bear spray is more effective than firearms in stopping bear attacks is not proven. It is junk science.

As I have posted many times, two interactions with brown bears led to serious doses of spray to the faces at staplegun range. Spray did not save either bear's life...

But do not consider for a second that it is the bear spray manufacturers pushing for spray. It is the treehuggers begging for the use of condiments to save as many bears as possible.

So I hear most bear attacks are when hiker/hunter surprises the bear, especially grizzly. If a bear is down wind they aint going to be surprised. My conclusion is then that most bear attacks are with the wind blowing in the face of the bear sprayer. So now I'm both blind and mauled. great

Also, I never hear mention how effective spray is going to be when I'm in my tent and the bear is trying to drag me out by the leg. A 325 grain 45 cal slug may slow from 1200 fsp to 1199 fps as it passes through the nylon of the tent... I don't think bear spay will pass through a water proof tent at all.

It is quite a feeling listening to a grizz snort around your camp as you lay in your bag.... while reaching for your rifle. I have encountered hunters with electric fences around their tent . Did not learn of that was affective.

Bear spray may be found in the back packs of attackees.

With a firearm you have the advantage of the loud noise too. Which may or may not help.

Sounds like my area. When it's time to act immediately, having to pause and analyze the right tool to grab is a bad thing.