The bears here at Kulik have a unique relationship with the human population. How is that possible here? That's a good question. I think what's really head-turning here for most people is the fact that this Ursus arctos horribilis which earned its name through a lot of horrible stories and such in the lower forty-eight, where it was first named, is the bear here which would be more like "Ursus arctos friendliest" or something.

These animals are clearly not aggressive towards people. They show a very low level of interest in people as a matter of fact, which is very comforting to those who come here to watch them.

So the theory I have is that with an intensely rich resource such as salmon primarily and the berries, in these environments we have high densities of bears. These bears are crammed in close together as a consequence of that they are very unaggressive - to each other and to us.

You created national attention with your research on bear pepper spray a while back. What was that all about?

The first thing I'd say on that is pepper spray does work quite well. I carry it. My crews carry it. It's a great, non-lethal deterrent, particularly in parks such as this that forbid the possession of firearms. It gives you something that you can do and it also happens to work.

But, the note that I made that caused a bit of concern was the fact that once it is out of the can, it turns out to be a very attractive substance to bears, which seems counter-intuitive.

Although it does burn and sting their nasal passages and eyes, when it is in low concentrations on the ground they find that scent is very intriguing. They love to scent roll in it. They rub it all over themselves.

So, that's what I was publishing. Potentially dangerous if you thought you might use it as some sort of insecticide-type force field to put around your tent to repel a bear, which people were doing.