Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firearms Defense Against Bear Attacks in National Parks is Legal

I deployed bear spray eight times over a ten year period…. against dogs… 9oz cans and I’d always replace the can after each use so it weren’t cheap.

I used it on inbound dogs closing in on my two blue heelers when I was walking them around the neighborhood. In every case my heelers were the intended target. Every time out we encountered loose dogs, almost all of which could be bluffed off. A bit less than once tho a year one couldn’t and bear spray was deployed. IIRC including two each of inbound pits and rotties and one boxer.

Worked every time but how this is relevant here…..

Bear spray doesn’t point naturally like a handgun, the can gives it an unnatural vertical “grip” angle such that I usually sprayed too low. I eventually learned to “aim” about a foot above the inbound dog’s back.

The times I didn’t hold over (first eight times?) over I missed the inbound dog.

#1) I would think that many people using bear spray against bears also shoot low for the same reason.

# 2) Even though I missed most inbound dogs with the pepper spray, it still worked. It was the sudden unexpected blast that appeared to instantly trigger the dogs’ flight response.

One time a big Rottweiler at night got in close before I saw it and it chased my loose dog in an oval orbit around me. Each close pass I gave the rott a close range blast right in the face maybe four times in a row. No visible effect on the dog.

Eventually the rott, its face dripping with bear spray, stopped to rub its face in the grass, no apparent distress, just wanted to clear its eyes.

#3) Capsacin might not affect bears like it does humans, it’s the blast that startles them.

JMHO

gonehuntin, that's an interesting take, all right. It seems that Svalbard is a lot like Churchill, Manitoba... a remote town located on the fringe of polar bear distribution, that attracts a lot of bears when the ice is out and the bears can't hunt seals. So a lot of folks go there for bear-watching.

I have to wonder what the governor of Svalbard based his policy on, as I can't find any citations of research in this area from Norway or Scandinavia in general. There is a comprehensive retrospective study focusing on polar bear attacks done by US researchers, however, that shows pretty good effectiveness of bear spray for deterring polar bear attacks (https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wsb.1403#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20bear%20spray,in%2018%20of%2019%20incidents).

Polar bears are obligate carnivores, and since humans are made of meat, we fit nicely into the polar bear diet pyramid. Attacks by polar bears are almost always predation, unlike black or grizzly attacks. I've spoken to folks who've lived in Churchill, and they're awfully proud of the fact that they've 'lived with' polar bears. There havent' been many bear attacks in Churchill for decades, but I note that in Svalbard there have been at least 6 people killed by polar bears (and eaten, or partially eaten).

I don't have any back country experience with polar bears, and maybe if someone here does it would be interesting to hear from them about how that went. Polar bear attacks are pretty rare, mostly because there's little opportunity for people and PB's to interact. But I do know that the guys in Churchill don't have much use for anything smaller than a 12-gauge slug gun. I can't find anything, anywhere,

Tom Smith's study of Alaska bear attacks 1880-2015 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=TUOTijQAAAAJ&citation_for_view=TUOTijQAAAAJ:hC7cP41nSMkC) states that fewer than 1% of all attacks involved polar bears. His study of bear spray in Alaska 1985-2006 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=TUOTijQAAAAJ&citation_for_view=TUOTijQAAAAJ:qxL8FJ1GzNcC) states that bear spray was used in only 2 of 83 uses of bear spray in that time period in Alaska, but it stopped the bear attack both times. Not much of a number to base conclusions on.

Since human-polarbear interactions tend to occur in the warmer months of the year, I suppose bear spray might be a reasonable thing to carry out on the tundra, but I don't think spray cans are reliable much below 32F. The Inuit people I've talked to in the past, and seen interviews with here and there over the years, seem to think that a .308 is plenty good for polar bear medicine.

I cited personal experience with spray, also. Never said living in Alaska makes a difference, but spending a lot of time around bears does.