[pct-l] Bear Canisters

[dsaufley at sprynet.com]

That's a very good question, and I don't know the actual answer to it, but I'll take a guess and see how quickly I get shot down.  

I have a book given to me as a child on our National Parks -- I think it's a Time-Life or something, and it was published in the 1950s.  Beautiful, color pictures. I loved that book so much as a kid, and poured over and over it.  One of the chapters is on Yosemite, and one picture in particular tells the story:  there is the line of (now classic) cars streaming through one of the giant sequoias, but they are all stopped while people in the cars are feeding the bears that line up for the handout. I also remember experiencing this when we went there in the early 60s with my grandparents.

So, my guess is that because Yosemite and areas within the Sierras were amongst the first National Parks to open up to this type of traffic, and because there was no foresight into what any of the impacts would be (to the trees, to the bears, and to the park itself), many problems the Park Service is still trying to correct to this day took root, including the serious bear problem. I arrived in Yosemite Valley on July 22 last year, and there had already been 91 bear break-ins in cars and RVs in the Valley since the summer began.  But in the backcountry, where aggressive food protection was in place, there had been zero problems to date the same year.  

It believe the problem to be more extreme in the Sierras than the PNW because Yosemite and surrounds is and was probably the destination for more stupid tourons than any other national park.  The roads brought the people up close and personal to the wildlife in this fragile environment, whereas in the vastness of the PNW, the encounters were less frequent, and the intrusion of humans less intense.  And, because there's Grizzly bears in Glacier and Yellowstone, people were less likely to do anything to attract the bears.  

Another factor is those dang bears are so smart.  The Backcountry Ranger who had manned the Rae Lakes station in '05 -- at the time when they had bad problems with a bear who learned how to pop open a certain model of Bear Vaults -- said that the bears would walk right past other bear canisters and head directly for the Bear Vaults, because they knew they would hit paydirt.  So, where bears have learned they'll receive a payout, they'll be there.  In the Sierras we've taught them well, but in the PNW, we haven't (yet) ruined them.  But it's not too late for humans to screw that up too! 

One of my best friends grew up in Boulder, CO.  Not in town, but up in the mountains close to the old mining town of Sunshine (for those who know the area).  When he was a kid, bears were extremely scarce.  But as more people began moving into the mountains, along with their garbage and careless ways, the bear population has exploded, and there is not enough natural food source. So the idiot humans started feeding the starving bears, and now they have some real problems up there. 

So, that's what I think, but I would love to hear from some experts.

L-Rod

-----Original Message-----
>From: stillroaming <pct at delnorteresort.com>
>Sent: Mar 21, 2007 12:52 PM
>To: pct-l at backcountry.net
>Cc: dsaufley at sprynet.com
>Subject: [pct-l] Bear Canisters
>
>Why are bears/humans a problem in very specific parts of the Sierras and not 
>the Pacific Northwest?
>
> Scott
>
>>>>>
>Well said, Tom.  Cannisters are all about protecting the bears, not stupid 
>humans and their food.  If we stupid humans are protected as a result, 
>that's a bonus, not the point.
>
>Our food is extremely high in fat content compared to what bears normally 
>eat.  This not only makes them junkies for our food (like doing meth once 
>and getting hooked), the higher fat content increases their birth rates, 
>putting too many bears on land that can't support them.
>
>It is virtually impossible to re-train an adult bear to return to eating 
>bear food once it's had human foods.  They can relocate them to the most 
>remote places, and they will find their way to the nearest garbage can or 
>human outpost, and go back to causing problems.  To the point that others 
>have made, where they are not hunted, they quickly lose their fear of people 
>and think nothing of bluff charging humans to get what they want.  At this 
>point they are considered dangerous and sadly must be (and are) killed. Talk 
>about humans screwing up the balance of things.
>
>This is such a travesty, I would rather see the idiot humans who caused the 
>problem in the first place killed.
>
>The rules are set up to TRY to keep nature natural.  If you can't accept 
>that, instead of hiking you may as well go hunting somewhere where it's 
>allowed, because you effectively do the same thing.  Not protecting the 
>bears effectively leads to their demise. Carrying a bear cannister is a 
>small price to pay to allow these magnificent creates to live as they always 
>have.  And, if you don't, and a bear does get your food, IMO you have the 
>blood of dead bears on your hands.
>
>Dead serious and not bored of the topic,
>
>L-Rod
><<<<
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