Alaskans Growl When EPA Bars Cayenne Pepper as a Bear Repellent : Wildlife: Residents swear the spray works and clamor to get it back. The state’s bear population is approaching record levels, about 1 for every 6 people.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska--Big brown bears thunder through the deep woods, closing in on a remote site where campers wait, ready to squirt the beasts. Pffffffft. A shot of cayenne pepper to the snout stops a 700-pound marauder in his furry tracks. And then he is gone.

In Alaska, people swear that this happens.

So when the Environmental Protection Agency began messing with BearGuard and other pepper sprays, the Bear Affair began. It has triggered a flood of calls to Washington from angry Alaskans, a tirade on the U.S. Senate floor and disputes at the Canadian border.

“This may seem like a funny story,” Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) proclaimed in the Senate chamber last spring as he told how the “long arm of the EPA had reached into the area of bear repellent.”

Using words such as “insane” and “mindless,” he described this year’s federal decree that yanked the popular spray off shelves. Cayenne pepper spray could not be advertised as an animal repellent, EPA officials said, because it had not been registered as a pesticide or tested for effectiveness.

Because the agency does not have jurisdiction over what is sprayed on humans, BearGuard could be repackaged, renamed and sold as a defense against human attackers, as is Mace.

“It seems rather ridiculous that you can use it on people but you can’t use it on bears,” said Allen Richmond, natural resources planner at Elmendorf Air Force Base north of Anchorage.

At any given time, a dozen bears wander the base, sometimes opening sliding doors in search of dinner, and for three years Richmond has studied how to discourage them. Rubber bullets and loud noise brought some success, and cayenne pepper spray was effective, particularly at distances of less than 10 to 15 feet, Richmond said.

“The black bears don’t like it at all,” he said. “They sit back on their haunches and try to get it out of their eyes and sinuses.” Of course, if the wind shifts, the user can get the dose, and Richmond has found himself coughing wildly, his eyes tearing.

Richmond said he carries the spray because he doesn’t like using a gun. Pepper and guns are the primary defenses against bears, who are thriving at near-record levels. State wildlife officials estimate that Alaska has about 100,000 brown, black and polar bears, one for every six people.

In recent years, state officials said, more bear incidents and maulings have been reported than in the previous two decades combined. Last year, bears ate a visitor from Washington state and a boy, 6, and several bears drew international attention when they wandered into downtown Anchorage, where half of the state’s population is concentrated. One was spotted during rush hour at M Street and 10th Avenue. In August, a bear had to be tranquilized after romping around Anchorage International Airport.

There are so many bears, and so many stories about them, that people here talk about bears like people in Washington talk about Democrats.

“Bears are kind of our trademark,” said Becky Doughit, a saleswoman in Grizzly Gifts. Her shops sells bear jewelry, bear calendars, bear videos.

“Last summer, there was a bear with her cubs right outside, just kicking back in the sun,” said Kim Massman, who works at the Brown Bear Saloon on Route 1.

To Lyn Frandsen, this is one hullabaloo that has gotten out of hand. He works for the EPA’s Region X, which oversees Alaska, and he thinks the agency was just trying to protect people. But the people did not appreciate it. “People were calling up and saying, ‘What the hell are you doing taking our BearGuard away?’ ” he said.

Frandsen said there was no scientific proof that the $40 pepper spray stopped charging bears. “We needed efficacy data,” he said. “Some people had shot the heads off charging bears and they still keep coming,” so EPA officials were concerned that inexperienced tourists might have a false sense of security, thinking a puff of pepper might save them.

The pepper had not been tested and registered as a pesticide, Frandsen said. Those familiar with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act are aware that cayenne pepper, the kind used in Uncle Pepe’s Triple-Hot Smokin’ Gumbo, falls into the pesticide category when used on animals.

“The EPA admits that the spray is probably safe to eat, if not smell,” Murkowski said. “It seems like you can use it on a dead bear, you can use it on bear stew, but you cannot use it on a live bear if the bear is after you.”

Murkowski suggested that bureaucrats in Washington might be trying to force Alaskans to have to “throw a pot of spicy chili” on advancing bears.

It only makes matters worse that Canada takes the opposite regulatory approach.

If the aerosol pepper is labeled as a generic self-defense spray, it cannot be brought into Canada. Only a specific statement that it is a bear or animal repellent makes it legal. So travelers, armed with expensive cans of cayenne pepper recently relabeled for use as “personal defense” to skirt the EPA, have been stripped of them at the border this summer.

In June, word filtered down through the EPA that the Bear Affair had grown too unwieldy and that the agency should give manufacturers a one-year reprieve as they seek to test and register the repellents. Frandsen said the order was to “focus on higher priorities.”

But shop owners who had to take BearGuard off their shelves know that the federal bureaucracy will be back in a few months’ time. People such as David Legg at Gary King’s sporting goods store wonder who is going to stand 10 feet from a charging bear to see whether a spray really stops a hungry grizzly.

“It’s a bad joke,” he said, wondering aloud about the current fuss, considering that pepper spray was widely used during the cleanup after the March, 1989, Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Like thousands of others, Legg joined the long cleanup effort and, while people were working at the shoreline, officials established bear lookouts, all armed with cayenne pepper spray. “The guards were wearing the spray on their hip like a gun,” he said.

“The EPA wants proof that this would repel a bear,” said Craig Medred, who writes about the outdoors for the Anchorage Daily News and was attacked by a 500-pound brown bear sow last year.

Medred used his handgun after the bear started chewing on his leg. As for the pepper, he said, “it’s a helluva lot better than having nothing.”