Bear testing

Listened to science Friday on local NPR station. Interview with person who conducted tests for the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee in Montana. He talked about 2 "problem" bears shipped there from Alaska. They load the containers with "fish, honey, and dog food" and then measure "contact time". Playing with it doesn't count but pounding on it, chewing, etc. does. If the container lasts an hour of contact time, it passes.

Did they say which containers lasted the longest?

No. They just list the ones that last an hour.

But they don't test for determined red squirrels. A few years ago, I saw a Garcia, the heavy black bear resistant canister, with a corner of the rounded bottom edge completely chewed through to the inner contents. It was rented from the HPIC at Heart Lake. The renter admitted that he watched a red squirrel work on it for three days without interference. If I was the rental clerk, I would have charged him full replacement cost.

Given enough time, an Adirondack black bear (famously named "yellow-yellow" for her ear tags) learned how to flip the black cover from the popular blue Bear Vault by hooking a tooth under the edge, and she taught her cubs how to do the same. That model of canister was banned from the High Peaks region of The Adirondacks, and also other wilderness areas around the country. Unfortunately, Yellow-Yellow was legally shot by hunters a couple of years later during hunting season.

In another less dramatic case, there was the famous swimming bear at Lows Lake. It would nightly make the swim to visit favored campsites along the shore, including isolated islands around the lake to check out leftover food scraps or food not properly protected. A group of BSA High Adventure trek leader guide trainees witnessed the wet bear in camp one night when their instructor forgot to put a bag of dried apples into the hanging food bag.

yknpdlr said:

But they don't test for determined red squirrels. A few years ago, I saw a Garcia, the heavy black bear resistant canister, with a corner of the rounded bottom edge completely chewed through to the inner contents. It was rented from the HPIC at Heart Lake. The renter admitted that he watched a red squirrel work on it for three days without interference. If I was the rental clerk, I would have charged him full replacement cost.

Given enough time, an Adirondack black bear (famously named "yellow-yellow" for her ear tags) learned how to flip the black cover from the popular blue Bear Vault by hooking a tooth under the edge, and she taught her cubs how to do the same. That model of canister was banned from the High Peaks region of The Adirondacks, and also other wilderness areas around the country. Unfortunately, Yellow-Yellow was legally shot by hunters a couple of years later during hunting season.

In another less dramatic case, there was the famous swimming bear at Lows Lake. It would nightly make the swim to visit favored campsites along the shore, including isolated islands around the lake to check out leftover food scraps or food not properly protected. A group of BSA High Adventure trek leader guide trainees witnessed the wet bear in camp one night when their instructor forgot to put a bag of dried apples into the hanging food bag.

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I'm more worried about racoons than any other animal- those things have HANDS!!!
I've seen one pull the carabiner off and flip the locking latch on a blue barrel in under a minute, I' also seen one open Yeti- knockoff cooler by pulling the rubber latches open. So far the only bear damage I've seen personally was a mess of teeth and claw marks on a bear vault, and that was a griz on thew Athabasca River over 30 years ago

Squirrels are the biggest problem around here. They are tenacious. A slick hanging drybag defeats their attempts as they repeatedly slide off, but they'll keep at it all day. Good camp entertainment.

You all should form an Interagency squirrel and mini-bear agency.

I have been around bears a lot, but have never used a bear container. We hang our food. I have never lost any food to a bear.

I have also been around bears a lot and I have also never used a bear container, nor have I ever hung my food. I have never lost any food to a bear. I have had tents shredded and contents scattered, but I always stored my food away from camp by about 100 feet.

I have yet to have any bear-in-camp problem, even though I don't usually bother hanging or using a bear vault. Some places require it though. In the Bowron, there are "bear proof" lockers at every campsite and every portage, but about half of those were not very bear proof in my estimation. The bears there must not be very smart.

In addition to the engineering cleverness of Yellow-Yellow described above, there are others in the Adirondacks. "Cliff", a bear in the High Peaks region was known to steal backpacks and deliver them to his favored spot at a rocky cliff before destroying them. In some regions you are advised not to hang a bag using a white rope because one or more bears have learned that if they make a paw swipe at a white rope attached to a tree, food will fall from heaven.

In reality, the worst offenders are mice, chipmunks, and squirrels (especially red squirrels as described above) if you camp in a well used campsite, especially at a leanto, then you can expect late night visitors looking to ruin your favorite easily reached bag which may or may not recently have held food inside. They don’t care. Even when I primitive camp in a pristine zero used site that I choose, I will at the very least support my backpack a few feet off the ground up on a small tree within sight of me.

During BSA high adventure trek guide leadership training, the first night out with a group of students was always a treat to observe. The first designated "leader of the day" student being observed in the skills scoring hotseat, among other duties, had to organize all the "smellables" bags of food and crew personal items into one or more bags to hang. Finding the right tree with an outstretched right height acceptably heavy branch at the right distance from our campsite area was the adventure to behold. OK, so who can throw the rope over the branch? Find a suitable throwing weight to tie to the rope. Throw overhand or underhand.? The jocks would attempt a throw overhand first, how many tries and misses? NEXT…

Maybe underhand would work better. Don't get your (or someone else’s) water bottle, worse yet a boot (I have seen these), a stick or rock get stuck with the rope wedged in the tree crotch. The best one ever was when a fellow instructor, my buddy Keith came up with the ultimate solution. He tied a heavy metal washer to fishing line and with a slingshot fired it at great speed, heading to nicely to go over a good branch. When the slack ground line got stuck on something, the washer returned at equally great speed, right onto poor Keith's forehead. Ouch. After that I gave Keith the nickname of "Shiffer". Why you might ask? Because he was really smart. He had shiffer brains.