There’s been a bit a of a kerfuffle recently about bear spray as the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee dropped its recommendation that the products discharge for at least six seconds. Not every bottle of bear spray lasts that long, and the company that makes a shorter duration spray lobbied to have the standard changed.
What’s the proper duration for a can of bear spray once you press the go button? That might be more complicated than simply saying longer is better. An arms race could lead to the ultimate bear spray, a fire extinguisher-sized backpack model, but it still wouldn’t prevent bear attacks in every case.
I’d think there’s an even more important standard when it comes to bear spray: presence or absence.
I’ve worked in retail operations in gateway towns of both Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and in both stores we urged visitors to pick up a can of bear spray before heading into bear country. It was too often a tough sale.
For some folks, the fact that it fired capsaicin rather than lead was the deciding factor. Others, I suppose, just don’t think they’re going to need it. I hope they’re right.
I keep a can with my fishing gear. My intention is to carry it every time I fish in bear country. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember it, and grizzly bears don’t make allowances for good intentions when they encounter forgetful fly fishers.
I recently started transporting bear spray in the bed of my pickup truck after an employee of an outdoor gear retailer in Cody, Wyo., knocked a can off a display peg and the bear spray dropped five feet and exploded. The capsaicin-laced aerosol was picked up by the HVAC system and the store lost most of its merchandise. It was closed for about a month while the place was professionally cleaned, then restocked.
After that disaster, it occurred to me that a can, possibly slammed in the door, would do serious damage to the interior of my sole means of transportation. I’m keeping the bear spray in the garage these days just to be safe.
The latest news on the bear spray beat is that the stuff might have been more useful in keeping Bozeman hunter Todd Orr alive than was originally suggested by media reports. Orr, as you might recall, was scouting for elk in the backcountry near Ennis on Oct. 1 when he was attacked twice by a grizzly sow. Orr survived the attacks and posted a selfie video he recorded before he drove himself to the hospital.
The video went viral. In it Orr — his face covered with dried blood — uses colorful language to explain that he sprayed the bear, but that it hadn’t worked. Well, maybe. An analysis by Chuck Bartlebaugh, the founder of the “Be Bear Aware” campaign, which promotes the use of bear spray, suggests the spray may have worked after all.
According to Bartlebaugh’s report of interviews he conducted with Orr, the spray may have reduced the severity of the initial attack. But Bartlebaugh also suggests Orr waited too long before spraying the bear. Orr hit the go button when the bear was about 25 feet away. At that distance the bear probably ran through the capsaicin cloud and contacted Orr before the spray took affect. That the attack ended may be because the spray did the trick, irritating the bear to the point that it wasn’t interested in continuing the mauling.
As for the second attack and the suggestion the bear stalked Orr, Bartlebaugh’s report suggests the nature of the terrain in the area brought the hunter and bear together a second time, after both initially went in opposite directions.
Bear spray won’t prevent every bear attack, but my New Year’s resolution is to make sure I’ve got a standard-sized can at the ready whenever I enter bear country in 2017.