"Bear spray" long has been recommended by national parks in the West as a great deterrent against grizzly and black bears. Indeed, among those parks endorsing bear spray are Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, and Grand Teton National Park.
Here's a snippet from a transcript to a video Yellowstone's staff (see accompanying videocast) produced on bear spray:
When bear encounters do occur, one response has been effective in consistently reducing the number of bear attacks with severe outcomes, the use of bear pepper spray. More and more people carry bear pepper spray in the field, professionals, outfitters, and everyday hikers and campers. Many can testify to the effectiveness of bear pepper spray as a bear deterrent, from bear specialists to outfitters, guides, and hunters.
At Glacier, officials also recommend bear spray, although they stress that you shouldn't gain a false sense of security by carrying a can or two.
This aerosol pepper derivative triggers temporarily incapacitating discomfort in bears. It is a non-toxic and non-lethal means of deterring bears.
There have been cases where bear spray apparently repelled aggressive or attacking bears and accounts where it has not worked as well as expected. Factors influencing effectiveness include distance, wind, rainy weather, temperature extremes, and product shelf life.
If you decide to carry bear spray, use it only in situations where aggressive bear behavior justifies its use. Bear spray is intended to be sprayed into the face of an oncoming bear. It is not intended to act as a repellent.
While this is all good advice, a check of the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 36, Chapter 1, see 'weapons' definition) shows those parks seem to be overlooking a prohibition against bear spray in national parks because it can be considered a weapon.
Weapon means a firearm, compressed gas or spring-powered pistol or rifle, bow and arrow, crossbow, blowgun, speargun, hand-thrown spear, slingshot, irritant gas device, explosive device, or any other implement designed to discharge missiles, and includes a weapon the possession of which is prohibited under the laws of the State in which the park area or portion thereof is located. (emphasis added)
Park Service officials in Washington tell the Traveler that the regulations do indeed seem to prohibit bear spray in many national parks. And they point out that while there is language that specifically allows the use of bear spray in Alaskan parks elsewhere in the Code of Federal Regulations, "(T)here is not a provision for it in the Lower 48 for some reason."
Thanks to Christoper Hibbard at Your Smokies for bringing this issue to the Traveler's attention.
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Comments
Mike--I want to preface my remarks by frankly admitting I could be wrong, but I think that under the CFR "weapons" includes both bear spray and firearms. So if a park superintendent can use the superintendents "compodium" to allow bear spray, I assume the superintendent could also allow firearms. Again, I might be wrong.
The parks that legally allow bear spray do so because the superintendent made an exception to the law/CFR. It seems like a superintendent could just as easily make an exception for guns. But I could be wrong.
What are you talking about? Pepper Sray? It's pepper, hot pepper. It's the same pepper you eat.
Odds are that the parks which authorize bear spray are the parks where encounters with bears are likely.
If you read each superintendent's compendium where bear spray gets a specific exemption from the law on weapons, 36 CFR SS 1.5 (a)(2) is cited, and pretty uniformly at that. This requires "rulemaking". Unless there's an immediate emergency, making a new rule would require a public comment period, a superintendent could get overruled by a director, and an improperly determined rule could be challenged in court.
Not exactly. It's concentrated from the active ingredient (capsaicin) in chili pepper, which is also used as a topical rub. Usually it's from a milder source such as cayenne or even jalapeno. A solvent is used to dissolve the capsacin and then the solvent is removed. A jalapeno is maybe 5000 Scoville units tops. Even the hottest hybrid pepper at peak heat is 2.2 million, although they're very expensive. Pepper spray is around that range, but from extracted capsaicin.
One can make the same argument about most any lethal weapon, depending on which side of the political spectrum you land on, perhaps. Bullets? Made of the same thing as your fork. Arrows? It's a stick with some feathers attached. Handgun? A machine milled from a big blank of steel that doesn't do anything on its own.
Like the "Zone of Death" controversy in Yellowstone, these millions of angels dancing on the heads of thousands of pins are fun to think about, but are mostly unimportant.
in that time period you mention, i would willingly bet that the amount of people in the park had substantialy risen as well.