So maybe most of us won’t be accompanied by an expert wildlife handler when we go exploring in the woods. But we can learn something from Jack Hanna –– carry pepper spray!
Last Saturday, Hanna, his wife and a few others were hiking through Montana’s Glacier National Park when they spotted a mother bear and two cubs. The grizzly family began to approach the group, but Hanna expertly guided them to talk loudly and back up.
The mother and one cub passed by finally. But the other youngin’ wasn’t having any guests. Before they knew it 125 lbs of bear cub was barreling down upon them.
“At about 30 feet, I unload my pepper spray, and the wind takes it,” he told The Columbus Dispatch in his characteristically dramatic style.
Oh, but the bear wasn’t scared.
“Then I unload the second spray,” he said.
Alas, the bear keeps coming.
“Then the third time I unload that pepper spray right in his face.” Finally!
Hanna claims he’s carried pepper spray for the past 15 years, just for reasons like this, but has never had to use it. Ironically, too, he had just filmed a public service announcement encouraging people to protect themselves by carrying pepper spray rather than guns, even though the latter is now allowed in national parks.
Even if he were to carry a gun, he thinks it would have been a pretty tough feat to take the bear down with a firearm.
“There’s no way I could hit that bear with a gun,” Hanna said.
So pepper spray is the way. Good thing he took his own advice.
Photo by Phil Konstantin via Wikipedia Commons.