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.
