Bear Spray Options????????

Another funny (ironic) story:
My friend managed to deploy bear spray into her own face when she reached into her backpack to retrieve some food and something snagged on the trigger. Not in itself funny but my friend works for WorkSafe BC….
Luckily, she by a stream when this happened but it took about an hour of constant rinsing to flush out her face…

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Another funny (ironic) story:
My friend managed to deploy bear spray into her own face when she reached into her backpack to retrieve some food and something snagged on the trigger.

That is a little weird, my old canisters and the new ones I bought from MEC have a trigger cover you have to remove before you can spray.

http://www.mec.ca/shop/frontiersman/4294964236/?Ntk=productsearch_en_q32008[HTML_REMOVED]q=bear+spray[HTML_REMOVED]h=10

BTW, earlier in the thread there was discussion about canister size, MEC sell a small (225g) and large (325g).

I also store them in a holster similar to these:
http://www.mec.ca/shop/cactus-creek/4294965622/?Ntk=productsearch_en_q32008[HTML_REMOVED]q=bear+spray[HTML_REMOVED]h=10

my bear spray has both a slide out safety tab and the holster is made from heavy webbing to wrap around the spray head for a lot of protection.

I haven't seen too many bears up here to be honest, a lot of the field work I did we had a dog or dogs running around the research plots which made lots of noise [HTML_REMOVED] commotion.

I did see a very large griz in the Gosnell creek area(where they wana put northern gateway) as soon as the 3 of us seen him on the forestry road we made noise and he turned 90 degrees down an embankment/ up a hill on a parallel route to our road which we could easily see cuz it was an old burn area, one of the science types told me a griz will go around people and continue in the same direction they were going\

I got a buddy who back country skis with bear spray in a belt holder which i don't get … how many bears do you see BC skiing?

XXXer mentioning dogs brings up a good point.

Years ago I was riding the KVR and another group on the trail at the same time had a small dog with them. The dog spotted the bear a little way off the trail and went off in pursuit of the bear. The bear got pissed off at the dog charging and barking at it, so the bear went after the dog. The dog got scared and ran back towards the owner, now with the bear in pursuit.

Not the situation you want to be in.

If you have a city dog, maybe leave it at home when you are heading into heavy bear territory.

If your dog is smart enough to avoid going after bears, you can ignore this.

we would go into a very small research plot and stay all day, you often had your head down doing work but as long as you heard the dogs running around with the bells on everything was cool, if you didn't hear bells … wtf ?

XXXer mentioning dogs brings up a good point.

Years ago I was riding the KVR and another group on the trail at the same time had a small dog with them. The dog spotted the bear a little way off the trail and went off in pursuit of the bear. The bear got pissed off at the dog charging and barking at it, so the bear went after the dog. The dog got scared and ran back towards the owner, now with the bear in pursuit.

Not the situation you want to be in.

If you have a city dog, maybe leave it at home when you are heading into heavy bear territory.

If your dog is smart enough to avoid going after bears, you can ignore this.

Thread about this issue over on Clubtread:
http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=61705

I ran into the maker of these packs a few months ago in Zion. He has been selling a bunch to trail runners up in Jackson Hole. They looked goofy and I gave him a hard time for carrying bear spray in Zion NP, but it might be a good solution for you.

He also seems to like fiddling with design, so if you want him to build an "Enduro Belt" I am sure he could accommodate.

http://www.scatbelt.com/

Personally I think bears spray is stupid. If there is even a breeze you will end up suffering.

http://www.mec.ca/product/4007-146/tru-flare-pen-launcher-kit/?q=beat%2Bbanger

Bear bangers are much more efficient and have no worries of pepper spraying your self.
They are also much smaller to carry. Mec sells them in kit with the bangers and flares. Much more useful than "bear spray"
I ve seen and heard bear bangers used it sounds like a shotgun going off which a lot of bears recognize as a very bad thing.
I have never seen one run so fast as one that has had a bear banger used on it.

i've shot ALOT of bear bangers and screamers at bears ( and geese ) over the years and i've seen alot of the reactions you describe GT' , however . . .

the other night i was down at rainbow park when a bear sauntered over the bridge heading into the park . when henry got right up in his grill , i backed him up with a screamer and that bear couldn't have been less affected by any of it . i even gave him some laser and he basically acted like he was just plain bored with the whole show . when i started running towards him he casually turned around and mosey'd on down the tracks , taking his own sweet time with henry all over his ass barking his face off .

so yeah , i'd be using the bangers a lot sooner and way more often than the spray , but if you'd ever find yourself in a " last resort " situation , i think i'd be happy to have it at hand .

Very good point. Last resort..
Was that one of those extremely rare Jamaican black bears?? I hear they are really laid back:)

at a bearaware course, we practised with inert spray in a real can…it was recommended to buy it (in our case i think was a place in high river, ab), or practise with the stuff you already have that will expire soon. or buy some bangers, go to a field and shoot them. bottom line was whatever you use and however you store it on your person, practise taking it out and discharging it, a lot.

bear bangers aren't great close up because you risk shooting the banger behind the bear and scaring it towards you. A whistle and bear spray is a pretty good combo though. When I carry bear spray I just keep it in the back pocket of my riding pack. I'd be pretty worried about falling and puncturing the canister on a rock with it mounted on my frame but that's just me.

We just saw a grizzly yesterday crossing the logging road while retrieving my truck after a shuttle so maybe now I'll actually start taking my bear spring along now

For sure, but I want a long range option in case I need to get a bear I see at a distance away from the area. Some rides you can't realistically backtrack. The bangers are the long range option.

The Fox 40 is the option that works at all ranges and doesn't have a limited # of "shots".

When I was in Uni my Animal Behaviour prof worked around grizz a lot in Haida Gwaii. Like very, very, close; sampling salmon carcass and scat etc. while the bears are feeding in the same reach. He felt that the bear spray's main value is that it gives the human enough confidence to be calm around the bears. After years of working with the bears, and bringing multiple grad students up with him, the only times the bears acted aggressively was when particular grad students would be fearful - the bears would chase him/her right the eff out of there. Same student carrying bear spray felt comfortable (possibly not rightly so buuut..) and the bears left her alone.

I bet that things are different with habituated/starving/hungry/cub protecting bears. "His" populations were quite wild and very well-fed. The same prof also felt that a grizz that wants to eat you will eat you, bear spray (and most firearms) won't stop him before he's torn you up.

My only suggestion about carrying is to look closely at the bottle you're buying and make sure that it's design is compatible with your use. I can't see any of the bottles I've owned opening by mistake, but it happens, probably more with some designs than others.

I did not think there were grizzlies on Haida Gwai. A few have been reported on Vancouver island but the smaller islands are not large enough to support any real population of grizzlies.