[pct-l] Bear Killed in Section D

[chwillet at indiana.edu (Christopher Willett)]

I believe the trash can was supposed to be an animal proof one, not like 
the one I put out on my steps on Monday mornings.  How the bear got in, 
I do not know.

Chris

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Brick Robbins wrote:

> 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...
> 
> 
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----------------------
Christopher Willett
Department of Mathematics
Indiana University
831 East Third Street
Bloomington, IN. 47405-7106
(812)-855-6737
chwillet@indiana.edu
php.indiana.edu/~chwillet