By Dean Weingarten | Contributing Writer
Bear spray is not as effective as handguns in preventing fatal bear attacks.
The proof is in the numbers and the cases shown below provide an unfiltered look at reported attacks over the past several years.
Bear spray was first marketed in 1986. It took time for bear spray use to become common. In the widely reported Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, there were 72 cases where bears were sprayed with bear spray. Thirty-two were recorded before 1996, and 40 from 1996 to 2006. Twenty-five were classified as aggressive bears, 46 were classified as curious bears, and 1 was indeterminable. A total of 21 of the incidents involved use by bear management personnel. Undesirable behavior was stopped 92% of the time for brown bears and 90% of the time for black bears.
By 2020, the number of incidents where bear spray had been used had grown to between 175 to 186 cases. (P. 122, Human-Bear Conflict in North America (1880-2020), including the previous Herrero/Smith data. It was judged to be successful 90% of the time, 158 cases out of 175, in the larger sample. The larger sample covers 35 years of increasing use of bear spray.
Handguns
Cartridge handguns have become common in the United States. Widespread use of cartridge handguns started about 1870 with the introduction of large caliber and Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers. The first case of a defensive use of a cartridge handgun against a bear was that of a Colt Single Action Army in California against a grizzly bear, about 1890. It was successful.
We have documented and published 173 incidents in which a handgun was fired in self-defense against a bear or bears. The sample covers 135 years of use. The success rate has been 98%.
Upon close examination, the definition of success for both the bear spray and handgun studies is very similar.
The problem with both numbers, however, is they only apply to cases which have been found and documented. There is an inherent selection bias against reporting successful cases of defense against bears. If the bear runs off and no one was injured, there is not much to report.
If a person is killed by a bear, nearly all cases are reported. When we examine cases where humans were killed, there is a striking difference between the effectiveness of bear spray and handguns. Ten people have been killed where bear spray was used to defend against a bear. One person has been killed where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear. Here are the bear spray incidents:
2003: Vitaly Nikolayenko, a famous bear researcher, was killed and eaten in Russia by a brown bear
2017: Erin Johnson was killed by a black bear in Alaska near the Pogo Mine
2018: Mark Uptain was killed by a brown bear while guiding an elk hunt in Wyoming
2020: Daniel Schilling was killed while clearing a trail near his home in Alaska
2020: Stephanie Blaise was killed by a black bear in Saskatchewan just outside her cabin
2021: Carl Mock was killed by a brown bear on the border of Yellowstone Park in Montana
2021: Leah Lokan was killed by a brown bear in Ovando, Montana, pulled from her tent
2023: Doug Inglise and Jenny Gusse and their dog were killed by a brown bear in Alberta’s Banff national Park
2026: Anthony Polio was killed by a brown bear in Glacier National Park on Mt. Brown Lookout Trail.
The single incident where a person was killed by a bear where a handgun was fired in defense was in the Svalbard Islands in 1995, when a guide attempted to defend against a polar bear using a .22 rimfire handgun.
2026: Crystal, New Mexico Also this year, a bear killed a New Mexico man on the Navajo Nation in the state’s northwest region, not far from the border with Arizona. The victim’s name had not been released at the time of this writing, and Navajo Nation police were able to track down the bruin and kill it, according to a published report.
There is little, if any, selection bias when considering fatal attacks by bears. In the worst case scenario, handguns are better at saving human lives than bear spray. Bear spray is better at saving the lives of bears. No bear has been known to die of bear spray.
