[pct-l] Protedted bears' behavior

[Ned Tibbits]

Wow. How interesting. The bears are demonstrating the same behaviors people 
do. Where victims are not allowed to shoot back, the criminals proliferate. 
Where you can shoot back, the "bears" leave you alone.

Just a thought......

Mtnned
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marion Davison" <mardav at charter.net>
To: "PCT List" <PCT-L at backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Why remove bear lockers


> When we hiked the JMT in 1996 we had an extensive conversation with a
> backcountry ranger in Yosemite on this topic.  We were complaining about
> the fact that Sequoia-Kings Cyn had bear lockers scattered all over the
> backcountry while Yosemite had scarcely any.  The ranger explained that
> each national park is sovereign, in a sense.  Its primary mission is to
> preserve its unique resource.  Therefore each national park makes its
> own rules as it sees fit, to preserve its unique resource.  So there was
> no point in expecting Yosemite to follow the same rules as SEKI.
> The Yosemite rangers object to the backcountry bear lockers because
> their very presence creates backcountry campground "ghettoes" with large
> numbers of people camped in close proximity to the box every night.  The
> area around the box gets trampled and overused.  They would much prefer
> that everyone use a bear can and camp well off trail, out of sight, and
> highly dispersed from other users. I suspect that the SEKI rangers have
> come to the same conclusion, and that may be the primary reason they are
> considering removing the bear boxes.
> Why are Northern California bears so much less likely to bother hikers?
>  The answer to this is really easy.  In the national parks, bears are
> not  hunted.  So you find the worst "gangsta" bears in the national
> parks.  They are habituated to approaching humans, having nothing to
> fear from us.  Outside the parks, bears are hunted during bear season,
> so they are much more fearful of human contact.
> The best large chunks of wild high-altitude territory in the Sierras are
> within the national park boundaries, so we used to do most of our hiking
> within the parks.  In 2003 we spent 50 nights in SEKI and Yosemite
> backcountries in  the summer, and we had annoying "gangsta" bears in our
> camp on 8 of those nights, despite using bear cans and keeping a clean
> camp.  Since then we have stayed out of the parks, hiked with a big dog,
> and haven't seen a single bear.  We sleep a lot better at night.
> Marion
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