Now we know why grizzlies are pissed….

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mister_coffee
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Re: Now we know why grizzlies are pissed….

Post by mister_coffee »

PAL wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 7:50 pm Yep, that AR-15 could come in handy. I mean if a bear was coming at ya.
Yeah, that would work really well.

The best recommendation for an anti-grizzly weapon, if such a thing is even reasonable, is either a large-caliber rifle like a Weatherby Dangerous Game Rifle or a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun with slugs.

Dangerous grizzly encounters take place at perilously close range (under 30 yards) and take approximately as long as a sneeze to go bad. You are unlikely to have the time to even engage the sights and will likely be shooting from the hip, if you manage to get a shot off at all. And the vulnerable parts of a charging grizzly are remarkably small, so you need to shoot accurately in those few seconds you'll have before the bear is on you and you'll have no use for the rifle.

The only people who increase their safety from bears with firearms are bear experts who have expertise in firearms. And unconventional expertise in firearms at that.

I consulted for several grizzly bear research projects in the early 90's and the above was gleaned from campfire conversations with bear experts who went armed into the field. It also closely lines up with Herrero's book, in a nice congruence between the Theory and Practice.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
PAL
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Re: Now we know why grizzlies are pissed….

Post by PAL »

Yep, that AR-15 could come in handy. I mean if a bear was coming at ya.
Pearl Cherrington
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Re: Now we know why grizzlies are pissed….

Post by mister_coffee »

My own personal opinion is that bear spray is overrated. I have had hundreds of bear encounters, both black and grizz, over the past 30+ years and any kind of aggression at all from a bear is extremely uncommon. And I am extremely doubtful that bear spray will be an effective deterrent from an aggressive, habituated, and hungry bear that has learned to associate humans with food (which is far and away the most dangerous situation amongst bear vs. human encounters).

Herrero, who has written the most authoritative book on the subject of bear attacks in North America, argues that bear spray can be an effective deterrent, but even he admits that the statistical data supporting that assertion is very sparse. We need to keep in mind that any kind of bear attack is vanishingly rare, and on the average bears kill about one person per year in North America. If anyone is keeping score we humans kill far more bears than bears kill humans.

I also question the logic of using bear spray against "sketchy" humans. If only because bear spray has an extremely limited range and a can of bear spray has an extremely limited number of "squirts" before it is depleted.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
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Now we know why grizzlies are pissed….

Post by just-jim »

.
A cautionary tale about BEAR SPRAY.

We all probably have some bear spray around - I do, somewhere. We probably don’t think about it as much as we should.

A friend - not from here - relates the following tale after driving back to WA from AZ, alone.

Why grizzlies are pissed - Or why you should NEVER buy bear spray from Costco.

Over the past decade, as more and more sketchy folks started showing up on the public lands I started carrying bear spray for protection in my trailer. And, prior to going to bed I place a bear spray canister where I can easily find it in the dark. This past week – driving back from AZ, alone - I ran into the usual sketchy folks in central Nevada and again when I parked my trailer on the Snake River between Boise and Baker City.

As I placed the Costco bear spray canister in a “safe” place, it went off for less than a second. That was enough to hit my stomach, but more importantly the fog when up into my eyes. I was wearing contacts at the time. I quickly managed to get out my right contact quickly, but was unsuccessful in getting out the left contact right away. I used water and saline to irrigate the right eye, and continued working on the left eye to liberate the contact from my eyeball. I was unsuccessful, for the entire evening.

Even with the irrigation and saline pouring into my eye all night long, the eye continued to burn and was rather uncomfortable. I thought it would get better given all the water and saline I poured into the eye, but that did not happen. I was 65 miles from Baker City and more than that from Boise/Ontario. I decided to wait until morning and drive to the emergency room in Baker City that morning.

That morning I could see NOTHING out of my left eye. Just a big hazy bright light. I left at first light, and managed to drive with one good eye to get to Baker City and the hospital. There I got initial treatment and was released to drive home. I made it about two miles up I-84 before I had to pull over at a rest area. Slept there for a bit, and then drove 40 miles to a campground outside of La Grande. That was a far as I could drive.

The next day the forecast was for snow heading west in the morning, so I tried to time it after snowmelt and called my wife and a friend, just to make sure I could have somebody drive the truck and trailer home. My vision was still hazy, but I could at least make out a vehicle at 40 yards. It turned out that I managed to drive all the way home. My daughter was convinced when she saw my eye that I had lost it. And I thought that I would be limited to seeing out of one eye, and maybe I could get the lens replaced and that would help with the blurry vision.

Monday I went to the ophthalmologist in town. Bad tear in the cornea caused by my desperate attempts to remove the contact lens. Then chemical burns caused by the little amount of bear spray that got into my left eye. Today, Friday my vision in the left eye is about 20/30 and I still have some discomfort in the eye ball. The steroid drops will continue into next week.

What I learned;

-In less than a second of bear spray NOT even directed at your eyeball can have serious consequences.
-Never, ever, never use a bear spray in a confined space.
-I would never use a bear spray or similar item while wearing contacts. The left contact was removed in Baker City at the emergency room.
-The Costco bear spray had a plastic trigger guard. That was it. On previous bear spray canisters there have been a plastic trigger guard as well as a zip strip to remove before the can became operational.
-In my case, the plastic trigger guard was still in place was the bear spray went off. It had just shifted a couple of millimeters and that was enough for it to spray given the pressure that the canister is under. It sprayed for less than a second but that was enough.
-Camped by myself and my dog I made the decision to wait until morning. I would not do that again, I would seek help immediately.
-I felt pretty stupid about my decision to use bear spray as a “protection”. UNTIL the ophthalmologist told me that is what he has for personal protection. He did wear glasses, not contacts. I think he is rethinking that decision.
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