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CONDON- After Friday's grizzly bear attack in Glacier National Park, we are all well aware, bear season is in full swing and that means people need to be educated on how to best protect their homes and themselves.

Montana's Fish, Wildlife and Parks helped put on the annual Bear Fair in Condon.

"The whole intent is to get the public and the residents of the Swan Valley to come out and visit with people that work with bears and getting info about living and recreating in bear country," said Montana FWP's Grizzly Bear Management Specialist Tim Manley.

The Bear Fair helps residents learn what attracts bears and how to handle those attractants.

Garbage, bird seed, and dog food are among the most common tasty household treats. But these things need to be contained. FWP Bear Manager Jamie Jonkel said it may take as little as a week, and only one careless person, for a bear to become used to food from one household. "One person can turn every bear in the area into a nuisance bear," he said.

President of UDAP Industries, Mark Matheny was also on hand to give demonstrations of his company's Pepper Power Bear Spray.

After being attacked by a grizzly himself, he developed Pepper Power Bear Spray in 1994.

Matheny said while some people choose to trust their firearms, bear spray can have an even more powerful effect on bears. "What you're doing is you're putting the bullet right in through the nose into the brain. The reason being is because a bear has an incredible sense of smell; seven times greater than a bloodhound."

He said various tests have shown bear spray to be successful 95 percent of the time when a bear encounter occurs.

But he added simply having bear spray doesn't mean success. He developed holsters for the product to ensure it is readily available when people need it. "I just look at bear spray kind of like wearing seat belts. If you have it in your backpack or someplace where you can't get at it instantly, it's really not going to help you out 'cause them bears aren't going to necessarily hold off until you get your bear spray out," he said.

One common misconception about bear spray is it will deter bears from entering a campsite if it's sprayed around the outside. Matheny said that's incorrect. "There's some substance in there that actually attracts bears around your camp. You are not to put bear spray on your equipment."

Tim Manley says the best thing for people to get when dealing with bears is education. "Get information on what bear sign looks like, what bear tracks look like, the habitat that they use so if you're out hiking or even living in bear country, you know the type of areas bears might be in, certain times of the year," he said.

Contact Tara Oster