When camping or hiking in bear country, the best strategy to avoid any accidental encounters with a bear, is to stay in a group, try and make lots of noise ie: singing or clapping hands and be on the watch for any signs of possible bears in the general area. Common signs of bears are fresh or recent diggings, over-turned rocks and logs, tracks and scat are all warning signs that a bear has been around.

Bears typically will try and avoid any contact with people and the majority of bear encounters happen because they are suddenly surprised or defending their cubs or a recent kill.

If you find yourself in an aggressive situtaion bear spray has been proven to be the best defense. Statistics shown by the U.S. Fish and wildlife service that people who do encount bears and defend themselves with the use of firearms suffered injury aapproximately 50% of the time,

In comparison 90% of the people who used bear repellent to ward off an attack were uninjured.  Using bear pepper spray to defend yourself is far more effective than using a bullet to stop or divert a charging bear.

Just having bear spray alone won't make you safe in the event of a bear attack. It is  vitaly important to your safety to know how and when to use the spray:

• Have the repellent easily accessible – either on a belt holster, a chest holder or on your backpacks water bottle holder..
• If confronted, don’t use the spray immediately – Calmly reach for the spray avoiding any sudden lurches and slowly back away from the bear -do not run. 
• First Fire a brief warning shot - If the bear begins to display any aggressive behavior, spray a warning shot in it’s direction.
• If the bear charges, delay spraying until the bear is approximately 40 feet away, 25 if it is windy. You want to spray the entire canister of bear spray into a cloud that the carging bear will run into.

Always keep calm in a bear encounter and discharge the entire can, remember that a bear's sense of smell is far more sensitive than that of a human's. Bear pepper spray is highly effective in repelling bears, and guard alaska bear spray has an invincible 20% Ultra Hot Bear Pepper Spray that will stop bears in their tracks.

 Don't ever use bear spray on camping gear, backpacks or as a method to repel bears. If you use it in that manner once the detering components of the spray have finally broken down, the remaining pepper will actually attract bears. Always use bear spray as directed.