[pct-l] bears & food

[CMountainDave at aol.com (CMountainDave@aol.com)]

Hey, I agree that bear cans are harder for bears to get into than hung food. 
My main point is that neither causes a bear to become afraid of humans. As has 
been posted by others, bears have an incredible sense of smell. They are 
going to detect the fact that you have food no matter what you do with it. They 
have no way of knowing from a distance whether they will be able to get your 
food or not. If they are not afraid of you, they are going to enter your camp to 
investigate. This close proximity is not good for them or us and is not a 
natural thing in the wilderness.  They could get hurt by scared hikers throwing 
rocks, we could get hurt if they get aggressive for some reason. I would like to 
see the Park Service use methods that have been used in other areas with 
success to condition the bears to not enter our camps, mainly with non injurious 
methods such as dog harassment. It makes sense to me. I just want the Park 
Officials to have open minds on this. I don't feel that they do when they simply 
pass new regulations that rely on inexperienced hikers to solve the problem for 
them. I am hoping that one of the many hundreds of people on this list knows 
somebody in Park management well enough to influence them enough to at least 
give the conditioning method a try. 
  My experience with Park Officials here in Washington has shown that they 
pretty much do as they want and ignore public input. (the goat fiasco in the 
Olympics -e-mail me if you want details). I fear that is the case in the Sierra. 
I don't like the idea of being forced to carry extra weight, but that is quite 
secondary to the welfare of the bears. I don't think they are on the right 
track and that is why I am speaking out. I guess it boils down to whether or not 
you think bears should be afraid of us or not. Some people don't want them to 
be so they can get up close and gawk at them and get close up pictures. That 
is why they once had open dumps in Yosemite
 Hope this makes sense.