[pct-l] Pee as bear deterrent?

[Jim Marco]

Hey Tortoise,
	Mostly, animals smell food about the same as you do. They have many more detectors (cells) and more processing power (the olfactory center of the brain) than we do. So it is assumed they "smell" better than we do. Who can say what is processed? Direction, certainly. Proximity or amount? Yes, but what is distinguished? Heat can effect the release of smells. How does an animal tell the difference? Is an animal's smell directional? Well, sure, to some degree, we have all seen pictures of noses twitching and heads wagging...winds can change this, of course. The amount of food is probably related to the amount of smell, but how does the animal distinguish? Sure, an OP bag will stop many smells, but does it simply stop some and let others through and in what proportions? Anyway, it gets very complicated. This is more commonly related to how they process stuff, than the actual detection. Sort of like asking how we see to a blind person. The mechanism is fairly straight forward, explaining "green" vs "red" is far more difficult. And, it may be different from individual to individual, hence color preferences, styles, etc.... Anyway, Bears can pretty much "smell" food, regardless of how the actual mechanism works and how they process the info. Estimates range from 2 times to 50 times what a dog can smell. But this is very difficult to quantify between individuals.
	My thoughts only . . .
		jdm 

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Tortoise
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 1:13 PM
To: Brick Robbins
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Pee as bear deterrent?

The key question for us hikers is do bears, etcetera smell the food?

Tortoise