Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 27 (UPI) -- Jack Hanna, the director emeritus of Ohio's Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said he used pepper spray to fend off a charging grizzly bear on a Montana hiking trail. Hanna said he was hiking late Saturday with his wife, Suzi, on a narrow cliff trail in Glacier National Park with three other hikers close by when they noticed a mother grizzly and her two cubs walking toward them in the opposite direction, The Columbus Dispatch reported Tuesday. Advertisement "We thought of letting them go by, but the trail was cut into the rock and was too narrow," Hanna said. "So I said: 'Everybody talk loud and we'll back up until we can get off the trail.'" Hanna said the group backed up the trail to a small clearing, where he instructed everyone to stand with their backs against the cliff. The zookeeper said the mother bear and one of her cubs passed them by but the third stopped on the trail and stared them down. Hanna said the bear, which he estimated to weigh about 125 pounds, charged the group of hikers. He said he unloaded his pepper spray three times, hitting the bear in the face on the third spray. He said the animal ran away. Advertisement Hanna said he has carried pepper spray while hiking for 15 years but this was the first time he used it.
