[pct-l] Bear Canisters

Wed Mar 21 15:21:19 CDT 2007

Donna,
I have first-hand experience of black bears being hand fed in Yellowstone in 
the early 50's. I remember seeing them fed thru car windows and from the 
steps of cabins at Old Faithful Village.

I don't remember that bears were a big issue on our 2002 CDT trip. The NPS 
assigned campsites and insisted that we hang our food from the poles in the 
sites. If we carried a bear canister, we still had to hang our food from the 
poles. Same rules in Glacier. The poles were tall metal poles placed away 
from other tall objects. Each pole had several arms with a chains attached 
for raising food sacks.

I am no sure why the California bears are so much smarter about getting 
food. And I wonder if the bear poles used in the other parks would work in 
California. That would eliminate the bothersome carrying of bear canisters

Ken
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dsaufley at sprynet.com>
To: "stillroaming" <pct at delnorteresort.com>; <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Bear Canisters

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
><<<<
>------------------------------------
>Trails : http://Postholer.Com
>Journals : http://Postholer.Com/journal
>

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