No Time For Pepper Spray

May 28, 2007 By: Marshall Cutchin

Thinking of fishing Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks this summer? Remember to make noise when hiking through areas where bears are common; surprising a grizzly is about the worst thing you can do. Nature photographer Jim Cole didn’t have time to reach his bear spray when he surprised a grizzly sow and cub near Trout Creek in the Hayden Valley last week. The grizzly hit him so hard it knocked his left eye out. “‘I want to document natural grizzly behavior, not bears reacting to humans,’ Cole wrote in 2004. ‘All the same, as careful as I try to be, I certainly have made my share of mistakes.'” From the Associated Press.