[pct-l] Bear Killed in Section D

[Bighummel at aol.com (Bighummel@xxxxxxx)]

chwillet@indiana.edu writes:

> The random dude put his food
> in the trash can, but the bear promptly retrieved it and kept it. 

Did his actions early in the season condition the bear to cause the "vicious" 
attacks later in the hiking season?  Very and highly possible.  

This is exactly what Tom Reynolds has been raging about for the past several 
years; that early thru-hiker laziness with their food can and has led bears to 
be conditioned to seek out human food in anything that smells like humans.  
Thus camp and tent crashings and eventually the end result is the bear is 
killed.  The San Gabriel mountains, where this occured, is not known as a bad bear 
area . . .  yet.  

Take good care of your food, please, it just might save a child's life later 
in the hiking season.  I take my kids backpacking and camping in the San 
Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel and Sierras often and would rather avoid such 
occurrences, of course.

It's a good thing that Tom isn't on the list anymore.  He'd been ripping some 
new @$$holes over this one!  I have to agree with him in this instance.

Greg