Re: [pct-l] bear boxes

[reynolds@ilan.com]

Re: All the NPS/FS personnel I've met (admittedly not many <g>) have
seemed scrupulous about keeping food from bears.

The above statement is true.

My point is that anyone who cared to look ten (10) years ago
could see that bear bagging was not working very well and bear boxs and bear
canisters
were the only way to prevent bears getting food from the average backpacker.
However, the NPS
and USFS [officially] clung to the idea that bear bagging worked. [The average
NPS "worker"
knew better]

We either have a problem NOW [according to the sierrawilderness post] or we SOON
 will have of bears
attacking campers for the camper's food.  The next step is bears predating
[killing and eating] humans for
food.

If you looked at what the NPS recommended 10 years ago--"Making noise and
throwing rocks to scare bears
away from a food hang"--you will see that the Center Basin incident [camper hurt
 defending a bear hang] was
only a matter of time. Absent a gun bears have no reason to be scared of humans.

As for "24 hour guard", how does anyone "guard" his food from bears? A bear is
strong enough to take it
away anytime he wants to. The "24 hour guard" is simply a "bluff". In Center
basin, a bear called a camper's bluff
. . . with predictable results --as "improperly stored food", ie the other
incident, implies.

We can:
1-Close the Sierra to humans
2-Kill all Black Bears in the Sierra
3-Scatter zillions of bear boxs in typical camping places
4-Require bear canisters and teach the public how to pack them
5-Do a combination of 3 and 4.

We cannot:
Trust to bear bagging and stealth camping. Even if a few could successfully
protect food with these methods the
average camper can't and the bears will simply get more agressive until someone
is killed.


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