[pct-l] Will Bear Canisters Work?

[reynolds@iLAN.com (Reynolds, WT)]

It depends. Currently bear canisters don't work because:
1-People refuse to use them prefering to ignore the law because the risk is
small.
2-People use them but improperly store excess food. This approach saves the
hike but not the bear.
3-People use them but still forget to put smelly attractive things in them.

Dave, my response to all the perceived wrongs of the NPS is that these are
all people mistakes, not bear mistakes. If people had always counterbalanced
correctly the method would probably still work because bears wouldn't have
had poorly hung food bags to practice their trick on. 

Counterbalancing also didn't work because:
1-People refused to use it, prefering to sleep with their food because the
risk is small.
2-People counterbalanced inproperly
3-People counterbalance properly but still forget to hang everything.

This all sounds familier to me. If we mandated wrist rockets, they wouldn't
work because:
1-People would refuse to use them, preferring to shoot marmots instead [more
challanging]
2-People would use them improperly killing other hikers
3-People would use them but still forget to bring enough steeles and run out
of ammo

The only solution to the "bear problem" is to educate people that proper
food storage is mandatory. The only way to do that is to catch and punish
those who don't comply. The best use of wrist rockets and steelies is to arm
a vigilante committee with them and instruct them to shoot people who don't
comply somewhere where the sun don't shine. This would be real fun, Monte,
and would actually fix the problem.

Tom