I'm enjoying all of your updates and the banter, Danielle. Thank you! Details on the dress, shoes, and so on, please! :-)
All the talk of guns and bears makes me feel obliged to share the state of the art information.
Tom Smith and Stephen Herrero, two top bear biologists, and others studied all of the bear encounters involving firearms on record in Alaska (1883-2009, n=269). Guns killed the bear in 61% of cases, stopped the undesired behavior 76% (long guns) to 84% of time (hand guns). Perhaps surprising, using a gun did NOT improve human injury rates over not using one. And "Firearm variables (e.g., type of gun, number of shots) were not useful in predicting outcomes in bear-firearms incidents." If this seems counter-intuitive, consider the following reasons cited:
lack of time to respond to the bear (27%)
did not use the firearm (21%)
mechanical issues (i.e., jamming;14%)
the proximity to bear was too close for deployment (9%)
shooter missed the bear (9%)
gun was emptied and could not be reloaded (8%)
the safety mechanism was engaged and the person was unable to unlock it in time to use the gun (8%)
people tripped and fell while trying to shoot the bear (3%)
--Smith et al. 2012. Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Management 76(5):1021-1027.
In a separate study of all Alaskan bear encounters involving red pepper spray (1985-2006, n=83), the same authors found the spray stopped the undesired bear behavior 90% of the time for all three species. Human injury occurred only 2% of the time (all minor). Wind complicated things 7% of the time.
--Smith et al. 2008. Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Management. 72(3):640–645.
In an earlier study of all bear encounters (with or without firearm or pepper spray), they found the most important thing in preventing human injury was human behavior--travel in groups, make noise, don't surprise them (biking, running, being quiet as in hunting), be wary in noisy enclosed places like willows and alders along creeks, don't run away or back down (most charges are false charges), stick together.
In summary, they said:
"Firearms should not be a substitute for avoiding unwanted encounters in bear habitat. Although the shooter may be able to kill an aggressive bear, injuries to the shooter and others sometimes occur. The need for split-second deployment and deadly accuracy make using firearms difficult, even for experts... We encourage all persons, with or without firearm, to consider carrying a non-lethal deterrent such as bear spray because its success rate under a variety of situations has been greater than those we observed for firearms"
I've been charged by a bear (no gun, did not use pepper spray, false charge turned 23 yards away), stumbled upon a bear 30 yards away while carrying a .30-06 rifle (did not shoot, wish I'd had pepper spray, backed away quietly without the bear noticing), and chased a bear out of camp for 150 yards, with confidence (3 people, no guns, 3 pepper sprays, all unused). I am n=1, but this woman always keeps a bear spray very handy when in bear country, whether or not I have a gun!
Now, if you ARE packing, in my research I found a cute camisole for concealed carry at
carrylikeagirl.com.
I hope this is useful! :-)
rachel
