Those of us in Grizzly country know they don't work worth a darn anyway. Your voice carries a lot further than the stupid little annoying bell - and every packhorse in the country has a bell on it so the packers can find the darn thing when it wanders off. So I am completely convinced they are only a dinner bell.

I make sure I talk in a group, and when solo give a little yip or yodel every couple hundred meters so I don't surprise one.

We mostly use bear bells to identify tourists. Wait till you've been on a dayhiking trail with the german hiker lady who as attached two of them to the backs of both of her trailrunners, and two to the top of each trekking pole - then you discover the real reason why firearms are not allowed in canadian national parks. I swear any judge in the province would have deemed it a justifiable homicide.