Actually wearing little bells to alert the bear to your presence is the best preventative medicine. :roll:
I also have a bridge for sale in New York City if anyone is interested. Cheap!
BEAR ADVICE MAY NOT RING TRUE
IN PRELIMINARY STUDY, GRIZZLIES DIDN'T FLINCH AT RESEARCHER'S BELLS
By Elizabeth Manning - Anchorage Daily News
For years, conventional wisdom has advised people to make noise to avoid
dangerous surprises while traveling in Alaska bear country. For those who
choose not to talk, sing, clap or bang on a cook pot, that usually means
wearing bear bells, a tried-and-true hiker's accessory.
But do the bells really work, or work the way we think they do, a federal bear
researcher asks. Though he emphasizes that it's too soon to draw any broad or
definitive conclusions, Tom Smith of the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska
Science Center has tested a group of brown bears that seemed to pay bells no
mind at all.
Over several days last fall, while doing other research about bear behavior
along the coast of Katmai National Park, Smith hid in a blind near a
well-traveled bear path and pulled on fishing line attached to a string of
bells tied to an alder bush. Not one bear looked in the direction of the noise
or even perked up its ears, Smith said.
"This doesn't mean bear bells don't work," he said. "It just means the bears
didn't respond the way we thought they would. Not one of them reacted to the
bells at all. It's fascinating stuff."
Smith said he first tinkled the bells lightly. The bears didn't respond. Then
he yanked on the line, making a jangling noise "almost as loud a fire alarm."
Fifteen groups of one or more bears walked past. Not one flinched.
He didn't think the bears were deaf, but he wondered. So he snapped a pencil
to mimic the sound of a twig breaking. The bears immediately turned and looked
at the biologist's blind, about 150 feet away. A loud huff, mimicking the
noise of another bear, elicited a similar response.
The lack of reaction to the bells doesn't prove anything, Smith said. Other
factors could have contributed, including a relative lack of aggressiveness in
Katmai bears compared with other Alaska grizzlies.
Still, the results are intriguing enough that Smith wants to investigate
further.
He emphasized that it is premature to tell people to stop wearing bear bells.
They certainly might help in some circumstances, he said. Bears in some places
might learn to associate bell sounds with humans, he said.
Smith spends most of his time studying brown bear behavior and bear-human
interactions. Along the way he has made some observations that have led him to
take a closer look at long-held assumptions about how bears see, hear and
smell.
He is the same researcher who discovered two years ago that pepper spray, sold
as bear repellent, can attract bears if used improperly. In effect he found
that the bears seemed to like the taste or smell if the repellent was sprayed
on the ground or an object, not directly in the face.
Because brown bears are naturally curious, Smith thought they would approach
the bells to investigate. Why would they ignore them? Maybe, he said, bears
tune out tinkling just as they might tune out other nonthreatening background
noises, like birds singing or a stream gurgling.
This summer, he plans to do a more thorough study. If he gets funding, he
plans to put out a recording of different noises - human voices, a dog
barking, snoring, acoustic guitars, pots and pans - at various decibel levels
to learn more about how bears react. He also wants to try his experiment on
other bear populations in the state.
Not a lot of research has been done on bears and bells, he added, and some of
it is confusing. A 1982 study in Glacier National Park in Montana pointed out
that the only people who were charged by bears were not wearing bear bells.
The same study also said that people wearing bells observed bears at a much
closer distance than people not wearing bells.
If Smith's hunch is right, it would upset some of the prevailing advice about
how to avoid bears: Make noises not found in nature to warn bears you are
coming.
Most Alaska guidebooks offer identical advice about hiking in bear country:
Talk, sing, shout, rattle pebbles in a can, bang on a pot or wear bells. Helen
Nienhueser, co-author of "Fifty-Five Ways to the Wilderness in Southcentral
Alaska," one of the state's best-selling hiking guidebooks, said she uses
bells when hiking alone. Some hiking guides prefer talking and singing for
hiking in places where it's hard to see or be seen.
Nienhueser said she started using bells more often while hiking to her cabin
south of Denali State Park after a woman and her son were killed at McHugh
Creek just outside Anchorage five years ago. "I'd be disturbed if they don't
register hearing bells," she said.
Jim Holmes, who staffs the public information counter at the Alaska Department
of Fish and Game in Anchorage, said he fields bear questions all day. He gives
people advice similar to what appears in guidebooks: Make a lot of noise or
wear bells.
"Bells are a 100 percent sure thing," Holmes said. "Everyone will agree that a
lot of bear attacks occur because someone surprises the bears. If a mama bear
hears bells, that's not bird singing or water gurgling. She stands on her hind
legs, gathers her cubs and goes away. I've never heard anyone say that bells
are background noise in the woods."
Bear bells are popular and are apparently becoming more so, according to sales
clerks are Recreational Equipment Inc. in Anchorage. The store sold 5,128 bear
bells last year.
The bells REI sells are made by a Canadian company called Hip Joint Inc. They
come in bright colors, from purple to yellow to orange, and are fastened to
REI's register displays by their Velcro bands.
The bells are best-sellers at REI. "We run out of them all the time," sales
clerk Bri Pallister said. "A lot of tourists buy them. Kids like them too. And
little babies are fascinated by them."
She said she doesn't hike with them because she finds them annoying. But her
golden retriever, Herbie, wears one so she can find him when he runs off.
Another clerk, Johan Soderlind, also finds them annoying: "I think they give
you a false sense of security. The best defense, I think, is your voice. I
usually sing a song. Or I speak in Swedish. That way it doesn't matter what
I'm saying. I can say balloon, car, washcloth, whatever.
"Or the good old 'Hey, bear, hey bear' works too."
