While best known for bringing exotic animals to late night TV, celebrity zookeeper Jack Hanna's latest wildlife encounter may go down as his luckiest.

On Saturday, Hanna and his wife were among a group of hikers in Montana's Glacier National Park that had an uncomfortable encounter with a family of wild grizzly bears.

He credits pepper-spray -- considered essential for hikers in grizzly country -- for preserving his and six other hikers' health and safety.

Hanna, who is director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, said he and his wife, Suzi, were returning from a 5-mile hike to Grinnell Glacier when they encountered a sow and two cubs approaching from the other direction on the mountainside trail.

"We thought of letting them go by, but the trail was cut into the rock and was too narrow," Hanna told the Columbus Dispatch. "So I said: 'Everybody talk loud and we'll back up until we can get off the trail.'"

The Hannas, who shared the same stretch of trail with four adult hikers and a 10-year-old boy, carefully retreated into a rocky clearing just off the trail. The sow and one of the cubs passed without incident. But the second cub, which Hanna estimated weighed 125 pounds, charged the hikers.

Hanna sprayed the bear three times before a direct hit in the cub's face turned the animal away. He said he has carried pepper-spray on backcountry hikes for 15 years, but it was the first time he used it to ward off an attack.

Hanna recently filmed a public-service announcement for the national parks that encourages people to carry pepper spray when they hike rather than firearms, which now are permitted in national parks.

"You can't do anything with a grizzly; they can run a football field in seconds," he said (Kathy Lynn Gray, Columbus Dispatch, July 26). -- DC