Question about Bear Spray

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

My daughter and her husband and two small children just moved out to Seattle. They like to take hikes in the woods with the boys, ages 20 months and three years old. I’m concerned about Cougar as there have been a number of attacks in the Northwestern part of U.S. I realize that Cougar are not like bear when they attach and most of the time the first inkling that there is a cougar interested in you is when you feel him/her on your back. That being said, I’d like to get her some bear spray or other repellent that may be effective in convincing both Cougar and bear that it’s not worth the effort. Can anyone recommend a pepper spray or other repellent that would fit this bill?

Thanks

A worried grandpa.

aka

Jim Smith

2

Cabela’s has a good selection of it that won’t break the bank. I do not know about the big kitty but bears have a sense of smell many times more sensitive than the best hound dog. It is believed that they have the most sensitive nose of all the land creatures so pepper spray does work on them.

I’d be more concerned about the cats. There is no false charge with a cat. When they decide to charge or stalk a human it is for keeps. I would make certain that everyone has bells on their shoes, carries a loud whistle and knows to make noise while in the wilds out there. Let them know you are there. The worst thing you can do is surprise a bear or cat.

3

Hi, Jim!
One that I’ve had guides and better “bear country people than me”, recommend, is the “UDAP Alaskan Bear Spray”, available through Cabela’s.
“Bear Bell’s” are said to work, when worn on packs, and/or, on hiking poles, but like everything about the outdoors… there are “50% that say they do” and “50% that say they don’t”, work.
Two friends of mine, that are guides for hunting bear, both have told me, though, that “common sense” is the BEST bear determent there is… "make yourself, known, well in advance of rounding a corner in a trail, stay away, in late fall, from brush piles, dead falls covered in brush, (winter bear dens), stay away from caves, etc. And, as they’ve both also told me, ALWAYS, for the “lady hiker”, stay OUT of the woods “during special times of the month”!! That, they both have said, is one of the MAIN reasons females are attacked more often than men, by bears.
Hope this helps a little bit!!??!
Paul
Also watch out for…!!

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“And, as they’ve both also told me, ALWAYS, for the “lady hiker”, stay OUT of the woods “during special times of the month”!! That, they both have said, is one of the MAIN reasons females are attacked more often than men, by bears.”

This is pure unadultrated bull hocky! If this were true there wold be hundreds of cases of documented attacks on women and in fact there are none. I don’t know who promotes this old myth, bit it sure doesn’t do a lot of good to promote it.

Keep a clean camp. Don’t cook where you sleep. Make noise. Don’t run. Don’t get between Mom and the kids…

There have been some good points made, but by golly this old saw ain’t one of them. After 20 years of guiding canoe trips throughout North America and can swear to that.

Corvus

5

Go to the link below and then the discussion forums. Post your question and direct it to Dave Parker. He has been involved with research with bear spray and can provide some useful info. Hope this helps.

Xcaddis

http://www.yellowstone.net/

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Do not take your small dogs with you on your walks. If they see or smell a cougar they run right back to you. To a cougar a small dog is food. Small children are always a target for cougars you have to keep them close at ALL times. Cougars can be beaten off if you have the moxie and a good club and are on your feet.

From what I’ve read about it the UDAP Alaska Bear spray will send a Cougar packing. They like to ambush so It’s correct that the first indication you are being stalked is when it hits you from behind. They almost always attack the smallest of your group. Never run from a Cougar they see this as weakness and it can trigger an attack.

I have the UDAC spray. US Customs won’t let me bring it into the states even tho I can purchase it both there and in Canada. Canadian Customs won’t let me bring it into Canada. Seems a really stupid rule to me but there you have it.

7

‘Best’ bear spray? Hard cast lead at about 1000 feet per second. Most people say .40 cal or bigger.

If you don’t wanna use the best, some of those spray on spices will work some of the time.

You all know how to tell bear scat don’t you? It smells like pepper and has little bells in it!

Sometimes we humans are NOT at the top of the food chain.

8

In reality, the likelihood of being attacked by a cougar is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent. Much greater hazards are faced driving to and from the site of your chosen recreation. In more than 50 years of hiking, climbing, backcountry skiing and fishing in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve never even seen one; and I believe this is the experience of most people who have spent a large amount of time off the beaten track.

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James,

While I understand your concern, it’s just not rational. Let’s get a little bit of reality infused here.

Wild animal attacks are incredibly rare.

Statistics indicate that your grandchildren are at much more danger from their PARENTS than they are from wild animals (most child deaths that aren’t accident or illness related are parental homocides).

The risk that they will be injured or killed in a traffic accident is much greater than anything ‘bad’ happening in the woods.

Playground equipment injures or kills children at a rate thousands of times that of animal attacks.

You can’t protect them from everything. The woods are much safer than the neighborhood they live in. What they will learn and experience there has proven to keep them from getting into lots of other more risky behaviors (children with parents that expose them to outdoor pursuits like fishing, hunting, and hiking are less likely to get involved in drugs, gangs, or crime).

Don’t worry about the animals, they are by far the least of the risks that they will face.

Be HAPPY that they are out there.

Good Luck!

Buddy

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Also it might be advisable to contact Wildlife Department in WA to see what advice they might have.

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Hi James :slight_smile:
I’m no expert, but I’ve spent more than 40 years campin’ fishin’, huntin, and for five years trappin’ Coyotes and Bobcats. I’ve lived my life about half in So. Oregon, and half in the remotest corner of N.E. California. Often way out in the puckerbrush. I’ve seen bears many times, bear sign many, many more times. I’ve had a couple face to face meetings with bears, once when we were both pickin’ blackberries in the same patch. A bear will usually give you room if you don’t threaten or challenge him, but, that’s no guarantee. Every one I’ve run across went his own way after he got a good look at me and a sniff. If you run, 9 times out of 10 they will most likely chase you. If they feel threatened, or boxed in, well, probably not good. I say, give ‘em room, and just kinda back away till they wander off. Some a them high potency pepper sprays will back most anything off. Cougars, well I’ve seen maybe six, never closer than about 60 yards, and always moving away or across my field of vision. I know two people who ran cougars off by goin after ‘em with somethin. one fella started in whackin one with an axe handle ‘cause the cat was after his dog, chained up on the front porch. That was a ranch house off the beaten track. The other was a woman,Cleo Hunt, an old ranch gal, a widow livin alone and 75 years old, same deal, cat was after her dog. she just went in whackin the cat with a rubber boot and hollerin’. The cat ran off across the yard and up an apple tree. Cleo called her 30 year old son Dave, and he showed up about 20 minutes later and shot the cat. It was still snarlin’ up in the apple tree. I’ve seen lots of cat tracks. cougars have pretty big feet, so do bobcats, so even an average size animal will have a pretty big track. I’m positive beyond any doubt that the other fellas are right. You won’t know about the cat that’s after you till it’s on yer back, but I think the chances of actually squarin off with one are quite slim. They avoid folks, and truly are most active at night.
Once when I was runnin’ traps, I found a full grown mule deer doe, whole, about 15 feet up a pine tree, wedged in a crotch. The lowest branches were 10 ft. up. I estimate the deer weighed around 175 lbs. maybe more. Cougar tracks all around, and deep claw marks in the bark. She (the cat) just jumped right up there with the doe in her mouth… :shock: When I’m in known cougar country, I pack a .357 in a snug little clip holster in the small of my back. I just can’t get over the prickly feelin’ I got 16 years ago when I saw that doe up in the tree. That’s a powerful animal can do that. Mostly, though, I think yer chances of trouble with cougar or bear are pretty small. Way more likely to have a traffic accdent, or run across some knothead with a bad attitude. Pepper spray will definitely work on fools and knotheads.
No good worryin’ happy fishin’ :lol: …ModocDan

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I lived in Olympia, the capital of Washington and the southern most tip of Puget sound. We had in 4 yrs there reports of 2 cougars wandering near the state capitol. I belonged to the local shooting range and they had 2 encounters, I had the 3rd. I never saw anything but feline growling very near just as I was packing my range bag up. I drew my pistol (CCW) and let loose with 3 rounds and never heard the growls again. Most healthy cats I believe you will never see. And if you have an encounter with a healthy one they will be on you before you know it. There is a picture by the Denver Zoo’s cougar cage area. It is of a family of 3 and the father snapping the shot of his 4 yr old daughter just in front of the sage brush. Her mother is in front of her on her right. If you look closer at the daughter, you’ll see a cougar 4 ft behind her crouched in the short brush. They never saw the cat until the pictures got developed. Back to Olympia, Wa., while riding my road bike to Boston Harbor, I stopped when I noticed something black swimming in the water. It was a black bear swimming in Bud Bay across to the marina. I got back on the bike and realized how close to nature I really was.

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i dont meen to seem rude but i disagree. you brought statistics into it about the dangers, but the are not accurate for if you are trying to determine risk assessment. yes more kids are killed by their parents than wild animals, but also, they spend FAR MORE time around their parents than in the wild. if youre trying to determine which is more dangerous, the risk of a childs parents killing the child, or a wild animal doing so, you would have to make sure they are spending the same amount of time around their parents as the woods.
this is why i dont like statistics. they are almost all flawed. its like this statistic i heard a while ago. statistically, the average person out of the world population has less than one arm. thats because average arms on a person would be found by: amount of arms each person has added all together divided by the amount of people. so it would only take one person with one arm to bring the average down to less than two arms.
so i usually try to avoid statistics.

so anyways, sorry for getting kind of offtopic. but i can definitely understand youre concern. although i dont have very much info on the matter of bear and cougar repellant so ill leave it to the other people who do

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It has been found that 67 % of the time, statistic figures quoted during an argument have been made up by the person doing the quoting.

I just made that up. :lol:

15

DDR,

No offense taken, but you did make my point for me.

They will spend far more time with their parents than in the woods. They will spend far more time dealingwith traffic than they will spend in the woods.

THAT is precisely why it’s so unlikely that they will be ‘hurt’ while in the woods. The numbers of dangerous animals found in the ‘woods’ is small (top end predators like Bear and Lions tend to have low numbers-how they survive without overpopulating and depleting their food supply). The area, or ‘range’, they inhabit is ‘large’. Such animals are territorial, another part of nature that keeps them from depleting their food sources. So the likely hood that a predator will be in a particular spot at any given time is pretty low. Combine that with the small amount of time a human child will spend inside that animals natural range, and you have an incredibly low probability that they will EVER be within sigth of one another. If you add in the wild animals natural wariness around humans, and it gets even less likely that a cougar or bear will harm a particular child.

When you talk to most folks who have actually ‘seen’ such an animal while on foot in the wilderness, they will usually tell you that the animal was either running away from them, or paying them no mind and going about it’s business. Agressive behavior during such encounters is rare.

The ‘risk’ that these particular children will be harmed by a wild animal is so low as to be almost non existant by ANY means of risk assessment.

While statistics can be, actually often are, misleading, numbers are numbers and in this instance it’s pretty obvious that the kids are safer in the wood than they are out of them.

Good Luck!

Buddy

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Given all this talk of statistics I cannot help but remind you all that the question was about child safety in the woods of the Pacific NW. I frequently look at statistical data to form inferences or determine statistical significance but as someone else has alluded to, data/data collection can be frequently skewed in many different ways( ie. England Journal of Medicine). If they were my children I’d ask the same question of locals. Having lived there briefly and seen and experienced some of the wildlife personally myself as a concerned parent always traveled prepared. Realistically the chances of real encounters remain small but as a parent why would I chance being optimistically unprepared? The woods are thick up there and hunting as I recall it was usually between 75-200 yds vs the usual 200-500 yds in the Rockies. Based on this alone I would expect to run into animals accidentally closer in than elsewhere. A surgeon I work with just returned from Destin, FLA and reported seeing a cougar for the first time for him on a walking path frequented by runners. He kept his bike between him and the cat and yelled to scare off the critter. This path is 5 min. from the highway and in viewing distance of high rise condos. Statistics for what they are can and will always be prone to spurious or irrational human error. Stay safe…
Racine

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my two cents, I have been watching this thread but havent reviewd all of it so I may be repeating.

Far more people are sent to the hospital each year by deer than bears or cougars, and no one that I know stays out of the woods beceause of them.

Children are far more likely to get lost than attacked by bears or cougars.

The bear spray cant hurt and might help, it also works on the worst preditor in the woods, (man)

for the children a suggestion would be make up small kits with whistles space blankets hard candy etc and give them as christmas gifts then teach them that if they are lost they hug a tree and blow the whistle. ( the ones I made for my kids were in little fanny packs)

Eric

18

I work in the woods through out WA and OR and have only seen one cougar and frankly it scared the h*ll out of me. I think bear spray could be a good deterrent.

On an unrelated note I have a funny bear spray story:

Two people I work with were working in grizzly country. On person was terrified of bears and made the other one carry the bear spray in hand and go first. Well, the going got tough and the brush thick. We rarely have the luxury of a trail were we are going. The bearspray got shoved in a pocket so that the brush could be navigated. Couple minutes later and she started to cough and burn. Yelling to the other person to run she bolted for the stream and sat in it. She had to loose the pants and hike a couple miles back to the truck in her underwear and rubber hip boots through the brush. We all have had many good laughs about this and the pants were permanently ruined. She washed them 20+ times and they still stung every time she wore them, which is a bummer for a brand new pair of Carharts.

Adam

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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881

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Here is my 25 cents (adjusted for inflation :? )

I am a fishing guide and a wilderness guide, have worked as a bear guard for a seismic crew and have hunted extensively in Alaska (lived in Alaska for 33 years). I personally know of 10 bear attacks/mauling. Many were hunters (stealthing in the woods and surprising the bear), a couple were around food piles (stumbled upon a food pile that the bear was protecting), a couple were around the den in spring time, two were sow and cubs, and one was a jogger with a dog. Bear spray was not used in any of these attacks.

I don’t have first hand experience with cougars (none in Alaska that I know of).

So, I guess that I might have a dog that will hunt in this thread?

My opinion based on experience, study and others:

Brown/Griz attack mostly defensively. There will likely be false charges before the mauling, certainly many warnings (not always the case; i.e. 2 friends around the bear dens didn’t have any warning, den was discovered after the attack. Also, sows with cubs will rarely offer a false charge). In a situation where the bear is offering warnings, bear spray may be effective. In these cases, however the bear is typically surprised because they didn’t know you were coming, i.e. they are up wind. So if you discharge your bear spray upwind, guess what??? you are now disable and cajun spiced. It has been documented that bears are attracted to pepper spray that has been sprayed on the ground, so they like it, just not in their face. If a bear is making a full charge, running probably around 35 mph or so, pepper spray is not going to slow them down.

By the way, it has been determined that irregular noise will alert a bear to your presence. A bear bell, on the other hand, is so constant that the bear will “tune it out”. So, in my opinion, forget the bells, talk out loud with companions, break a stick or whack a stick or whatever on occasion… Bears love dogs, they taste just fine and make a fun challenge. They also will go out and find the bear and swiftly return to the owner, thus more food for the bear. Seriously, the one friend that was mauled while jogging had his dog with…the dog ran ahead and encountered the bear and then ran back to the owner with the bear in close pursuit… the bear beat the jogger up quite extensively (he lived but is permanently scarred).

Black bears (and presumedly cougars???) attack for food; i.e. predation. In these cases the critter will actively and stealthly stalk the prey and look for an opportunity to attack. I agree with the posts about the cats that if a bear/cat wants to attack, you won’t have any warning. In these cases, the bear spray is likely not effective.

Now, I am reluctant to disclose this information because I am quite dissatisfied with myself and the performance. As a hunter, I have had to shoot 2 black bears with my handgun. This is a .41 magnum, with HOT handloads. In both cases the shots turned the bears but didn’t kill the bears. Indeed, it took many shots to finally dispatch the bear. I have sworn since that I would not, if at all possible, shoot a bear with my handgun again. Presently, I carry a 12guage shotgun with a slug barrel. Certainly the handgun is more convenient to carry, but not as effective. The .44 mag is a better gun as is the .50 but still a bit light for stopping an angry bear. Indeed, an Alaskan sports editorialist/writer for the Anchorage paper was carrying a 454 Cassul, got one shot off before the bear proceeded to chew on him a bit… didn’t kill the bear and the bear was never found.

So all of that to say that your best defense in the woods are your senses, eyes, ears, nose, and common. Be bear aware, watch for signs, always look ahead and around corners as much as possible, avoid situations where you are turning a blind corner into the wind. Be cautious around flowing streams where the sound will drown your sound as well as the bears. Keep all food out of your tent. Use bear proof containers and suspend if in high bear activity areas. Avoid travelling alone (most predator attacks are on soloists). Be well armed (12 guage or very high powered rifle; i.e. .338 or larger) if in high risk areas or involved in high risk activities (i.e. hunting, wildlife photography, etc.).

Bears are very unique and majestic animals. I truly love watching bears in the mountains, or fishing the streams… just being bears. They are incredibly intelligent and adaptive. It certainly is possible to get along using whatever method and means necessary to be bear aware/safe.

Happy trails…