>>146034I've had bears charge me and finally drop 10 feet from me with multiple sabot slugs in them... so your comment is moot because you have simply been lucky.
>>145916Shotguns are a great thing to have on hand when dealing with a bear population. Civilians as a general rule can get away with avoidance through proper personal and camp hygene, however if all deterrent measures fail.... well, then you are at life risk and have to act.
Bears also vary in actions depending on their location and their environment. If they are used to being fed by idiot people at campsites, then they know that people = food and that is when things are dangerous. Generally, bears in the wild PROVIDED YOU HAVE DISTANCE, will not want to fuck with you... but if they magically appear and they're less than say 20 yards from you, you really need to start considering having whatever means you have at your disposal to protect yourself.
Bear spray generally works once on a bear, at which point they know it hurts and they will do a flat out charge on you when you fire it off. The problem is, you don't know if that bear got maced before or not.
Avoidance and proactive measures to prevent incursions on yourself and your campsite through the aforementioned hygene, food storage, not eating where you are sleeping, being clean so you don't smell like a pink bacon bag wrapped in fluffly nylon shit... all these things will reduce the chances of having to actually interact with a bear...
But hey, it's your life. it's only 2 sheets of paper for a DLP kill anyway, better to have to fill it out than have your next of kin be notified.