Study: Guns no more effective than pepper spray in bear encounters

Star-Tribune ^ | March 25, 2012 | KELSEY DAYTON

[SJackson]

LANDER — As bears begin to emerge from dens in the greater Yellowstone National Park ecosystem, a new study says carrying a gun into bear country doesn’t make you any safer.

Tom Smith, a professor of wildlife conservation at Brigham Young University, and fellow scientists studied 269 bear-human conflicts in Alaska for a paper appearing in the Journal of Wildlife Management. Those incidents involved 444 people and 357 bears, 300 of which were brown bears.

The team found firing a gun is no more effective in keeping people from injury or death during bear attacks than not using a firearm. Research didn’t find a statistical difference in outcome — injury, fatality or noninjury — when they compared those who used their gun in an aggressive encounter (229 instances) to those who had guns but did not use them (40 instances).

Smith found many people didn’t want to shoot a bear and often went through a decision-making process that took too long when a bear charged, Smith said.

“That reluctance is a built-in problem for this deterrent,” he said.

In his study, 24 percent of people who used guns were injured and of that group, 17 people were killed.

In a paper he wrote in 2007, after analyzing the use of bear spray as a deterrent, Smith found only three of 156 people involved in bear encounters who used spray were injured (less than 2 percent). And all of the injuries were minor, he said.

[TYVets]

When I read this thread the thought of a .416 Rigby or Remington popped into my head.

Many years ago I read a story written by a native of Alaska about hunting for moose, sheep, goats etc in grizzly country. Most of the locals at that time carried 30-06's when hunting. I don't recall the distance, but the writer said that when a grizzly got to that point the shooting started.

Since the study that started this thread talks about people who hesitated, it would be interesting to read that story again.

[wjcsux]

My son in Alaska always carries a 45-70 with hot loads with him when fishing in western Alaska...just in case! When hunting brown bears, the minimum is a .338 mag...
I have to agree. I was in my local gun shop a few weeks back. I was eyeing a Model 700 Remington in .375 H&H Mag that would be up to the task of stopping a Grizzly. As they say "bring enough gun".

[marktwain]

Grizzly Guns (World Record shot with a .22)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2846837/posts

Bella Twin and her World Record Grizzly .22 long

http://www.angelfire.com/on2/LandOwner/images/GRIZLEY2.JPG

[General Heinrich Von Nuisance]

Ping for Reference

[archy]

As bears begin to emerge from dens in the greater Yellowstone National Park ecosystem, a new study says carrying a gun into bear country doesn’t make you any safer.

Great news! I'll believe it just as soon as I see the Yellowstone Park Rangers turn over their handguns and the shotguns and assault rifles in their vehicles for cans of bear spray.

I know three people who've been part-eaten by bears. I agree that the spray works to send the bear off, sometimes. But once they close and smell blood, it takes a whole lot more. And in the case of one of my three pals, it was two bears.