[pct-l] Why remove Bear Lockers

[kmurray at pol.net]

Well, here is the text of the Wilderness Act, the law of the land.  It
doesn't appear to have much wiggle room:

Definition of Wilderness
(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where
man and his works dominate the landscape, is
hereby recognized as an area where the earth and
its community of life are untrammeled by man,
where man himself is a visitor who does not
remain. An area of wilderness is further defined
to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped
Federal land retaining its primeval character and
influence, without permanent improvements or
human habitation, which is protected and
managed so as to preserve its natural conditions
and which generally appears to have been
affected primarily by the forces of nature, with
the imprint of man’s work substantially
unnoticeable;

I can't really imagine sitting at a campsite with a bear box, and honestly
thinking that it met that definition.  I'm not sure who you would call in
the gov't who you could convince to ignore the law.

C'est la vie

> I should have known--when in doubt, blame Congress, and you'll usually
> be right.
>
> As much as I appreciated having a "proper" bathroom when I hiked the
> Whitney trail a few years ago, I can understand the Forrest Service
> not wanting to devote the manpower and expense to maintaining them and
> transporting the waste off the mountain. All the outhouses really did
> was increase convenience for humans.
>
> The bear lockers are another story. They're already in place, and they
> require essentially zero maintenance. They're there for the protection
> of wildlife rather than the convenience of humans. I could even see
> removing rather than repairing broken lockers, but removing functional
> lockers seems like it will do more to hurt than help the goals of the
> Wilderness Act. The Park and Forrest Services already know from
> surveys that one of the most common causes of bears getting food in
> the wilderness is people having more food than will fit in their
> canister; this will just exacerbate that problem.
>
> Is there any hope of changing their minds through a polite campaign of
> emails or phone calls? Who would we contact? Is this just tilting at
> windmills?