Stopping a charging bear can be like stopping “a freight train.” Forest Service instructors recommend stepping aside as you spray. (Flickr photo/Marshmallow)
The extremely mild winter meant bears were out and about earlier than usual this year. So far, there have been two bear attacks in Southeast and summer is just getting started. KCAW’s Brielle Schaeffer decided to try her hand at using bear spray and has this story.
Gunloading “Range is hot”
I’m at the Tony Hrebar Memorial Shooting Range in Sitka. The U.S. Forest Service is training its seasonal employees to use guns and pepper spray as bear protection.
Gun shots
Jacquie Foss is a soil scientist for the Forest Service in Sitka. She’s giving me a lesson in how to use pepper spray against a charging bear.
“We pull it out. We pop the top off with our hand supporting the base then out, forward, spray.”
Former Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist John Hechtel examines a can of inert bear spray during a training session focusing on bear deterrents in Wrangell, Alaska. The session was part of the fifth annual Wrangell Bearfest celebration in 2014.
(Flickr photo/James Brooks)
Several paper targets with pictures of big brown bears are propped up with PVC pipes and placed throughout the range. One target is rigged to a pulley to make it move.
“We practice like we play so come on.”
“Bear!” Spraying noise “Fun, huh?”
She recommends moving to the side while still spraying forward to get out of the way.
“Bears have a lot of inertia so when something gets hit in the face with pepper spray it’s going to disable them possibly. You don’t want to be in front of essentially a freight train. You want to move to the side for your own safety.”
Biologists have found that pepper spray has a better success rate than firearms. According to a study in the Journal of Wildlife Management, a person’s chance getting seriously injured from a charging grizzly doubles when bullets are shot compared to when bear spray is deployed.
Bear pepper spray is way more potent than mace. That’s why we’re practicing with inert cans of compressed air.
“They’re not cheap, probably 15 bucks but it’s worth it if you’re going to carry it to see how far it goes this says 40 feet but they’re really effective maybe at 25.”
Foss stresses that bear spray is not a repellant like bug dope. It doesn’t make the bear stay away.
“What it does it gives you the opportunity as a person to increase the space and for you to leave the area. It distracts the bear enough to stop any negative behavior so that you can leave.”
She says once it’s out of the can it’s not really a deterrent anymore. It can actually be an attractant so it’s best to get out of there and let others on the trail know.
Getting a direct spray on the bear is also important. I talked to Alaska Wildlife Trooper Kyle Ferguson. As part of law enforcement training, he had to get pepper sprayed.
“There’s a difference having been sprayed myself having the full on blast effect at close range versus the residual mist effect. There’s a vast difference between the two you can cough your way through residual mist effect but getting the full blast is a different experience.”
He says the first 15 to 20 minutes after he got sprayed were “terrifically uncomfortable.” His whole face burned and he was involuntarily flowing snot and tears. But, another officer wiped it away and was okay. He was more bothered by the liquid in his eyes. The point, he says, is that the spray can have different effects on different bears. They have a high pain tolerance.
“You should know how that’s like if you have a stressful situation with an aggressive bear, you should know ahead of time what that sensation is going to be like and how well you can function with exposure.”
Practice, in this sense, really makes perfect, he says.
“The thing about bear spray is a lot of people, in my experience, a lot of people carry it and know how to take the safety off but never try it. If you apply that some logic to a gun, you’re probably not going to thrive in an encounter with a bear.”
Now it’s my turn to give it a shot. I get coached by Joe Serio, a biological technician with the Forest Service.
“You’re going to stand right up here there’s sort of an imaginary line. You’re really going to want to try and use the pepper spray at the best opportunity you can. You have it out, you have it ready to go in case the bear does charge.”
He’s had to use bear spray out in the field before and it worked. A few years ago, he was working at a sockeye weir on Redoubt Lake, south of Sitka.
“We nicknamed this particular bear Sly we’d been seeing her for a few years we called her Sly because she was real sneaky. One day we had our heads down and she showed up behind the weir. We decided deploying the pepper spray she ended up moving away from us but not very far.”
But it was far still far enough away. He says the bear spray kept them safe and saved the bear’s life. Sly is still out there. She’s had a couple of cubs. Forest Service workers see her every year while netting salmon.
While spray is an effective tool against aggressive bears, Ferguson says people should still be bear aware. He says don’t camp right next to salmon stream in the middle of August. If you come across a bear on a trail make your presence known–wave your arms, make noise. Never run from a bear but slowly try to back out of the area.
