A very good question but ultimately this is one question that you will have to answer for yourself. We can, however, present you with some facts about the area and offer our opinion; but the decision to carry bear spray while you are visiting the Smokies is yours to make. Let’s start by defining what bear spray actually is.
What is Bear Spray?
Bear spray is a non-lethal deterrent that can be used against aggressive animals; mainly bears. To be effective, it needs to be used and deployed properly. What do I mean by this? Just carrying bear spray doesn’t protect you. You must know when to use it and how to use it for it to be effective. Bear spray, however, is not difficult to use and every canister comes with instructions on the can. We also provide additional training resources with all of our rentals through links to videos and articles from trusted sources.
Bear spray is essentially a type of “pepper spray” that employs the chemical Capsaicin (the chemical that causes the “heat” in peppers) to attack the moist areas of an aggressive animal (e.g. the eyes, mouth, and nose). It overwhelms the animals senses with a desired outcome of them loosing interest in their aggressive behavior and moving onto something else (like “how do I stop this burning?”). As stated earlier, it is non-lethal and doesn’t have any negative long term effects to the animal.
What Bear Spray Isn’t?
There are two things you should know about bear spray that it isn’t:
- It isn’t a repellant!
You carry bear spray to use against an aggressive animal. You don’t spray it on yourself, clothes, and equipment to keep the bears away (like you would a mosquito repellant). You would actually find out very quickly why bear spray is so effective if you tried to do this (it is not recommended!). The important take away from this is to know that carrying bear spray will have no effect on whether you encounter a bear or not since it isn’t a repellant. - It isn’t 100% effective!
This one may surprise you and we wish we could report otherwise but bear spray is not, nor should it be expected to be, 100% effective. It will greatly increase your odds of a positive outcome in a negative human/bear encounter but there are no guarantees. You are dealing with a wild animal in the outdoors with a product that needs to be deployed effectively. You can also significantly increase your odds of not being harmed by ensuring you know how to properly use bear spray.
What About the Bears?
The Smokies of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee are inhabited exclusively by the black bear. We do not have brown (grizzly) or polar bears in this region. It is estimated that there are about 1,900 black bears living within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This puts the population density at about 2 bears per square mile but the actual density will vary by region. Some areas, like Cades Cove, have a higher density but bears exist in all areas and elevations of the park. It is interesting to note that the Smokies have the densest population of black bears in the country. If you are coming to visit the Smokies, you are coming to bear country!
Are the Bears Aggressive?
It is important to know and understand that bears are wild animals and can be unpredictable. However, they are a very well understood animal and the National Park Service has great resources available that you should definitely check out (linked at the bottom of this article). While the bears generally want to be left alone and go about their business, negative human/bear encounters do happen and the actual statistic is somewhat shocking. According to the National Park Service there have been an average of 339 negative human/bear encounters reported per year over the past 10 years. They go on to state that “many more go unreported”. Wow!
To Carry or Not to Carry? That is the Question!
We would argue that the best defense against a negative human/bear encounter is to prevent it from ever happening in the first place. The National Park Service, who really is the all-knowing bear authority here, has a number of recommendations listed on their website (linked below) for how to significantly decrease the odds of a bad encounter from happening. Bears are, however, wild animals and carrying bear spray is a safe and effective deterrent to have at your disposal should you find yourself in a dangerous situation. The decision to carry bear spray, however, is up to you. Should you decide to carry bear spray, we offer a cost effective way to achieve that. Whatever you decide to do, stay safe!
For more information on bears of the Smokies, please refer to:
