[Magdalen] Product comparison: bear repellent sprays

[Grace Cangialosi]

This is funny, because I just recently learned about these, and they are actually recommended as a fall-back deterrent--like Mace. The bears will run. But we only have black bears here, not grizzlies, and it's usually enough just to make a lot of noise, and they'll run away.
Funny story:  A couple of years ago three of us were hiking to the top of Old Rag to do some trail maintenance and check on a couple of rare plants at the summit.  We spotted a bear down off the trail, and it looked at us for a minute and returned to its foraging, and we went on.  A little later we had stopped to rest, and a couple came up from the way we had come, and we asked if they had seen the bear. They said it had been right in the middle of the trail. The woman, who had a German accent, said she knew you were supposed to wave your arms and make a lot of noise. She said,"The only thing I could think of was the German national anthem, so I started singing it at the top of my lungs, and the bear ran away!"

> On May 13, 2017, at 6:03 PM, Brian Reid <reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> wrote:
> 
> https://www.bearmageddonnews.com/2017/02/23/top-bear-sprays-compared-which-one-gets-you-killed-fastest/
> 
>