Residents can’t bear it anymore
- posted: 16 Oct. 2007
- scrollnews@byui.edu
As the number of bear sightings in southeastern Idaho reaches record highs compared to past seasons, so, too, do the sales of a new innovation: bear spray, according to the Flathead Beacon.
Robert Palmer, a sporting goods store owner in St. Anthony, Idaho, said that the spray has been in high demand in the area and that finding suppliers is very difficult.
Stores like th C-A-L Ranch sold more than twice as many cans of bears spray as the chains stores in other locations, due to the large number of requests for the product, according to the Associated Press.
Very similar to pepper spray, bear spray is composed of a chemical compound that causes irritation to the eyes and throat.
The difference is that the active ingredient in bear spray is much more concentrated than that of normal pepper spray. Also, bear spray comes in a larger can and has about five times the range of pepper spray.
Using bear spray is not very difficult.
“You just point the nozzle at the approaching animal and spray it in its face,” said a C-A-L Ranch associate in Rexburg. “This will frighten the bear and cause it to run away.”
Linda J. Miller of the Public Affairs Office for Yellowstone National Park said that there have already been several attacks in and around the park this fall.
“There was a 24-year-old man who was mauled in the park, and four people were attacked outside the park’s north entrance on Gallatin National Forest’s land,” Miller said.
The rise in sightings and attacks is not coincidental.
“Drought and shortages of food in the bears’ natural environments have caused them to stray farther from where they are used to being and into new territory,” Miller said.
A section of the park has already been closed twice since Sept. 14 due to problems with bears mauling elk hunters, according to a press release from the Yellowstone National Park Service.
There are a few things that can be done to reduce the threat of a bear encounter. First, travel in groups and make plenty of noise. Make sure all food items are secured in air tight containers so the bears cannot smell them, bring along a can of bear spray. 
