#2. I bet a huge % of guys shooting a grizz and walking away flip the bird to the red tape involved in reporting it. The guys that cannot draw fast or shoot well enough become the statistics.
From some of the Alaska folks that I've talked with, it's much easier to just tag a bear then report it as a DLP. As a resident up there, you just slap your $15 (or whatever nominal fee) harvest ticket on it and you are good. If you report a DLP, you have to go through all of this mess to prove your case. As a non-res (and a res I guess), a DLP can be a nightmare it seems unless you have fresh wounds to prove you were in danger.
Overall, to me there are almost three different sides to a bear encounter in the wild.
There is a curious bear that is just snooping around looking for some food. Fairly passive and inquisitive, I'm guessing bear spray would be fine as a "deterrent" with these animals. You just need to send the message that this isn't the area they want to be in.
Then there is the aggressive/defensive/protective animal which is acting on instinct and adrenaline. These are the encounters that I wouldn't want anything less than a lethal means of defense with. The problem here is if you are only prepared for the curious, passive encounter, the aggressive encounter can go all wrong.
The third is the "invited" scenario where people have done silly and stupid things to gain the attention of the animals be it having a dirty camp or encroaching in areas that obviously are dominated by the bears. If an animal now thinks there is a food source or they are being pushed off of a food source, that innocent, curious bear can morph into the aggressive, protective animal very quickly. Again, lethal force is my preference here too.
Now, I'm no expert by any means but I've been in the wild of Alaska plenty of times. Quite often I laugh when we take someone new up there and they want to carry a gun with them everywhere. Most often, I don't even thing about carrying anything, but it's all about situational awareness. There are certain times when I will most definitely carry a firearm. Mostly it's because we are either encroaching on the bears food source (fishing salmon streams) or packing out meat which could get the attention of a hungry animal.
Anyway, I guess my point is a firearm isn't meant to be a "deterrent", it's meant to be an endgame. I don't view bear spray as an endgame at all. Even in the situations where it is effective, that animal may not really "learn" from that isolated incident and could be a threat to someone else.
