[pct-l] Bear canister

[Steel-Eye]

Good afternoon, All,

It's easy to think bear behavior will be "reset" given a generation wherein
the sows do not teach the cubs to eat people-food but, unfortunately, the
problem is not what the sow teaches them, it's what the sow doesn't teach
them  - fear of humans. With rare exceptions, where humans hunt bears, bears
avoid humans.  In some areas - National Parks in particular - that balance
has been tipped when bear populations are deprived of that life-saving fear.

Other than in the Sierra's Natl. Parks the only places on the PCT that I've
been the teeniest concerned about scrounging bears were at Red Cone Spring
in the Crater Lake Natl. Park, and in the short passage across the lower
corner of North Cascades Natl. Park just north of High Bridge.  There's a
pattern:  The U.S. National Park Service.

On the remainder of the trail I sleep under the stars with my food next to
me.  In my 50 years of various hikes I expect literarily hundreds of bears
have scented my grub and had the thought to investigate, but in no instance
did they take any.  That wasn't because their Momma neglected to show them
that Fritos and Snickers Bars are yummy, it was because they, and their
progenitors for the previous 10,000 years here in N. America, have been
imprinted with the instinct that when they smell people an empty tummy is
better than a Darwinian Award.

Steel-Eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dirk Rabdau" <dirk9827 at yahoo.com>
To: <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:39 PM
Subject: [pct-l] Bear canister


 Certainly, hiking without the need for canisters, as is common in other
parts of the countrywould be preferrable. But this will only happen once
bears in the Sierras do not have access to human food for a generation.

My two cents.

Dirk
_______________________________________________
Pct-l mailing list
Pct-l at backcountry.net
http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l