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A popular series of TV commercials asks "What's in your wallet?" but sometimes it's more important to remember what you're carrying next to your wallet. That was certainly the case recently at Grand Teton National Park when a park visitor accidentally set off a canister of bear spray inside a visitor center. Bear spray has a proven track record as a defensive measure against bear attacks, but the recent miscue provided a reminder about the importance of following the instructions for safely carrying such products. The apparently accidental discharge of pepper spray forced the evacuation of the visitor center at...

BANFF, Alta. - One of the most popular hiking and biking trails in Banff National Park is bringing in restrictions at the height of the summer tourist season due to fears of bear attacks. The Lake Minnewanka Trail has been a favourite haunt for hikers and mountain bikers for decades. There are over three million visitors to the park each year and many of them take to the 32-kilometre trail northeast of the Banff townsite.Until Sept. 15, it will be mandatory for hikers to travel in groups of at least four. At least one of the individuals will be required...

BYU bear biologist Thomas S. Smith published a study on the effectiveness of bear spray for deterring aggressive bears. Here he is pictured with an unconscious "mother" polar bear - "If she were conscious, she'd be holding me," Smith said. Also found spray residue actually attracts bearsHikers and campers venturing into bear country this spring may be safer armed with 8-ounce cans of bear pepper spray than with guns, according to a new study led by a Brigham Young University bear biologist. Thomas S. Smith, associate professor of wildlife science, has conducted field work among bears for 16 years and...

Long ago, grizzly bears thrived in Montana as did tales - some tall, some true - told by frontiersmen of a man-eater even more fearsome than the other two bogeymen of the forest, wolves and mountain lions. Today, the reputation of Ursus arctos horribilis - along with other major predators ... Also changed is how people can handle encounters with grizzlies, using a chemical spray rather than guns to improve the odds that both humans and bears will escape the encounters unharmed. But Workman believes that if a bullet was good enough for his great-grandfather more than a century ago,...

A black bear chased, caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park, and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area, a warden said. The biker, Greg Flaaten, 41, a Web administrator for the town of Banff, was being treated for severe arm injuries at Foothills Hospital in Calgary following the attack, and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday. Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm, but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact, maintaining...

A 29-year-old Farisita man suffered bruises and possible nerve damage to his neck and shoulder this week when he tangled with a black bear on a private ranch near Stonewall about 25 miles west of Trinidad. Harold Cerda stopped to use an outhouse on the ranch. While he was away from his car, a bear climbed through an open window and started to eat Cerda's lunch that was on the front seat. As Cerda came out of the outhouse, the bear was walking in his direction and took a swing at Cerda, knocking him down. Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the...

A black bear was caught in a forest recreation area Sunday and was being sent to a veterinary school to determine if it was the same animal that attacked a family, killing a 6-year-old girl. Authorities found a bear in the same trap where they detected paw prints on Saturday in the remote Cherokee National Forest Chilhowee Recreation Area... The bear, which was captured near the site of the attack, looked to be the same weight as the 350- to 400-pound bear that attacked a mother and her two children on a trail in the recreation area on Thursday... The...

Authorities hunted Friday for a black bear that picked up a 2-year-old boy in its mouth and mauled his mother, critically injuring them before killing the child's 6-year-old sister. Witnesses told authorities the bear picked up the boy in its mouth while the mother and other visitors tried to fend it off with sticks and rocks, said Dan Hicks, a spokesman for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. When the bear attacked, the girl ran away, authorities said. Rescuers found the girl's body about 100 yards down the trail from the falls. A bear was standing over her. "Allegedly, after the...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Scott MacInnes set an Alaskan record this week, although not one contenders would seek to break, by becoming the state's first person to survive two bear attacks, state officials said on Wednesday. MacInnes, a 51-year-old biologist, was mauled during his early morning jog on Monday when he met up with a brown bear and one or two cubs near his home in the Kenai Peninsula town of Soldotna. He had been mauled 38 years earlier on a well-used hiking trail in the Chugach National Forest, according to a government biologist. "That's the only time in the...

The encounter last weekend between three bears and two Boy Scouts at a camp in Warren County was more harrowing than originally reported, as the bears pawed at the teenagers for an hour, bit one of them and attempted to bite the other, according to a report by state wildlife investigators.The boys, who were later vaccinated for rabies, cowered on a rock as they fended off the two 60-pound cubs and the mother bear at the Yards Creek Scout Reservation in Blairstown on Saturday night, wildlife investigators said.One of the boys was bitten twice by a cub. The animal first...