[pct-l] Moth Balls & Bear Repellant

[Reinhold Metzger]

[pct-l] Pee as bear deterrent?



  Brick,

What are Old Wife Tales to some folks, may be the "Gospel truth to
others.
Ed and I became friends and thought alike on many subjects,including
moth balls.
Ed and I were not the only ones, many old timers who had been hiking
the trails before the current crop was born came to the conclusion
that moth balls can be a deterrent to bears.
This conclusion is not based on "Old Wife Tales", but on years of
testing in a natural hiker environment under the exact conditions
that hikers and bears encounter in the wilderness.
Not knocking laboratory testing, but laboratory tests don't create
the exact conditions a hiker and bear encounter in the wilderness
during the bears attempt to rob the hiker of his food.
Sometimes there is no substitute to creating the exact environment
and condition to arrive at a valid conclusion.

During my 40+ years of hiking in bear country we had our share of
bears coming into our, or adjacent campsites, looking for food.
For the last 20 or so years we have been using moth balls as bear
deterrent after being told about moth balls by another old timer.
At first skeptical, we tested for several years on our hikes, by
placing 2-3 moth balls into little pouches made from old stocking
material,and attaching them our food bag, bear canister, pack, and whatever.
What we noticed was that items with moth balls were undisturbed,
while items without mothballs were disturbed, knocked over or
rummaged through.
This has let us to the conclusion that bears, if given the option,
will avoid items with moth ball odor and concentrate on items
without moth ball odor.
That is not an "Old Wives Tale" but evidence from many years of
testing moth balls in the exact environment and conditions that
hikers and bears encounter in the wilderness.

I do not dispute that bears, with one of the keenest sens of smell,
may be able to smell the food in a bag with moth balls attached.
However, they will also smell the much stronger and more offensive
moth ball odor and will be less likely to go after our food with
the offensive moth ball odor and will, instead, go after other
hiker's nice smelling food without the offensive moth ball odor.
  
I have been accused, that by using moth balls, all I'm doing is
sicking the bears on other hikers.
I say better them than me.
Besides, everybody is responsible for their own bear precaution.

BTW...in the morning I put the moth balls in a zip lock into my
sleeping bag stuff sack.
That gives the sleeping bag and me a slight moth ball odor which
is much less offensive than the "on the trail to long hiker odor".

So, if you girls get tired of your smelly boyfriends,....come on
over to my tent.

JMT Reinhold
Your good smelling trail companion
-----------------------------------

Paint Your Wagon  wrote:
>/  Comparing urine to moth balls, and or moth balls to an Opsack's
> contents, isn't a fair comparison seeing how they are quite different.
/-------------
Brick wrote:
Comparing one Old Wives Tail to another Old Wives Tail is a fair
comparison.
OpSacks were shown in a good test to not prevent canines from
smelling their contents.
Bears probably have just as good a sense of smell as a dog.

One google search brought up a Department of Fish and Game page, as
well several other that said Moth Balls actually attract bears. Yet
another Old Wives Tail.

Personal experience is not generally a large enough sample size to
validate a method, even if you like and respect the source of the
personal experience, as many of us did Mendo Rider.
--------------------
Tortoise wrote:
The late MendoEd spoke highly of small bags of moth balls placed
around his camp site.