RE: black bear precautions?
one summer job I had a while back was planting trees in a very heavily bear populated area and they gave us bear mace and bear bangers which is a cool little tool its the size of a pen and you have a little cartridge that goes on the end of it then you pull a little slider down with your thumb(slider look just like a little handle on the side of a pen) when you let go of the slider it hit a primer on the little cartridge boom it was frecken loud. loud enough to scare any bear away. Yes it probably will scare any game thats in your area but I think that would be the least of your worries when a hungry is about to have you for lunch.