[pct-l] Bear Killed in Section D

[brick at fastpack.com (Brick Robbins)]

At 08:51 AM 9/10/03, Bighummel@aol.com wrote:
>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.


I would venture to guess that the "trash can" used was one of the "critter 
resistant" type that are common in the Angeles Forest. It is not 
unreasonable for a thru hiker to assume that a critter resistant Gov't 
provided trash can in a campground would keep any local problem bears out.

However, the trash cans I've seen in Angeles don't look nearly as robust as 
the ones I see in Yosemite, so I'd have to assume that Angeles is not setup 
to deal with problem bears. Was the problem thru-hiker laziness, or Gov't 
negligence?

Any way, despite Tom's rantings, the ratio of Thru Hikers to weekenders is 
such that the weekender's actions have MUCH more impact on the human 
interaction with the wildlife. (yes, I know that every little bit hurts, 
but fixing 0.001% of the problem usually doesn't fix much...)

Strider, I bet that this post would start Tom ranting about the need to 
carry a bear can starting from Mexico, since we do have bears as far south 
as Mt Laguna now.... I've seen tracks around Lake Cuyamacca,

They killed one near Julian last year, but for raiding houses, not tents, 
which is not behaviour that Tom could blame on the scofflaw thru hikers...