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Posted by calamity on February 20, 2008 at 2:47:55 am EST
In reply to Bears, Bears, Bears posted by Timeportalmatrix on August 5, 2007 at 12:57:20 pm EDT

Smith's USGS site recommending pepper spray is replete with opinions, but also offers good reasons to avoid killing a bear, given his slavish devotion to finicky state laws requiring carcass disposal, retrieval of skin by shooter, and relevant onerous logistics.

I don't grant at all, that the separate, historical analysis I linked to is much beyond science, pure and stupid, rather than opinion, nor that its terms are not reasonably well defined.

Smith et al., worked with 17,000 different numbers for the total study.

Obviously there is a tiny fraction of these numbers on USGS Web site. The most suspect statistic, to me, shows that people with firearms fared worse in the average bear attack than those unarmed. I bet half of those injured or killed with firearms were dressing game.

But to discount the work wholesale is merely cranky.

It's s probably some of the best work of its kind. Its comment that "bear attacks in Alaska are rare," is certainly accurate relative to the total human population in the state. It would probably remain fairly accurate, even if restricted to certain hunters and backpackers.

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• Re: Bears, Bears, Bears - overmywaders 15:52:56 02/20/2008

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