i ain't skeered of no bear, but if he really wants to come in my tent for the stuff that passes for food while i am hiking, i will gladly give it to him...
hanger?
I'm going to assume that "hanger" is this case is someone who hangs food as opposed to say, a Lone Wolf-er, who keeps food in their tent. Sorry, its just that on my first read through I was laughing hysterically, being a hanger (hammocker).Originally Posted by john gault
"I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe... ?"
- Kate Chopin
I always use an Ursack, so it's not a problem for me.
There was one person that I read about on this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._North_America that got dragged from their tent. The problem is that they don't mention anything about food in the tent (so that's an unknown), but it seems as the bear was not interested in "food stuff".
Here:
Samuel Evan Ives, 11, maleJune 17, 2007
Taken from a tent in American Fork Canyon in the Uinta National Forest in Utah County, Utah where he was sleeping with his stepfather, mother and 6-year-old brother. The bear was later killed by state Wildlife officials
Many of the attacks were on the "easy prey", but really can't tell, not enough info. However, it seems as though you're just as much at risk, if not more, walking around with food on your back.
.
I found a few that specifically said the person had food or food-related items in or near their tent - one in particular involved a 15 year old boy who had some ricearoni in his tent, lol. Kid was fine overall, but the bear did some damage.
I'm not saying that you'll get attacked by a bear if you sleep with your food. You probably won't. I'm just saying, why take the risk?
Here goes again: The parks are dealing with several problems in one. There's the problem of habituated bears being a menace to both humans and themselves. There's the problem of ignorant humans that think bears just naturally behave like poodles, without even considering how poodles behave. There's a liability issue. There's a conflicting problem of conservation, which drives them to concentrate visitors who seems to have entitlement issues. And there's the problem of the bears learning how to deal with countermeasures, like the bears out west who can open bear boxes. And more, no doubt.
So it is not really the case that the advice issued by park authorities is necessarily the best advice on the limited issue of food conservation and bear problem avoidance. They are fighting on a broad front, and this is not their only or even primary concern. If I were to be camping at a campground or even a back country site in Yellowstone, for instance, I would be inclined to follow the rules (bear bins, bear canisters, etc.) because just about all of the bears in Yellowstone have be well trained by legions of idiot tourists to be pests and dangerous. And besides, those are the big, mean kind of bears. And if I were out on the barrens a few weeks from the nearest store, I would not be inclined to pat the nice white, woolly things, but rather to defend my lifeline. Similarly, there seem to be places on the AT where bears are learning faster than the authorities. I would avoid such places.
But humans and black bears have coexisted for quite some time, maybe 15,000 years or so. While all the aboriginal cultures that have lived with bears have bear stories, and they all respect bears, they also live with them quite easily. It seems bears mostly use their superior speed, strength, senses to avoid humans rather than prey on them. The real question might be why did we lose our familiarity with these creatures, and why do we assume city rules apply to the out doors? And why do we think that we retain ownership of our food if we abandon it in a bear bag?
On the AT: Sleep with it unless there is a convenient cable or box........no issues
Out West: Bear Can
Alaska: Bear Can...............AND gun
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
while i don't bear bag myself (or treat most water), i always make sure i bear bag (and treat water) for the scouts. safety first, even if i don't personally feel the need.
Notice that many of those are brown bear attacks.
Habituated bears are a problem on the AT and we will probably see more issues with that in the coming years and it won't be just a camping issue. I've seen one bear in SNP that was habituated and showed aggression towards me and one that showed very little fear in New York.
They fear us because we hunt them so it's something they've learned over time, but now they're starting to forget it because so many idiots feed them, plus hunting bans.
They really have no sense of their own strength, so if they attack and you put up a good fight you have a good chance of surviving, because they don't won't to chance an injury.
They really fear dogs, because they've learned to, but a bear could easily tear up any dog.
I own a tent that has a bear paw rip in the mesh (according to the seller).
If your head was near it, would have had a nice gash.
I mean should we wait and see if the bear rips tents and attacks?
Tell you what - you guys go on up to Blood Mtn with your bags of food and test your theory on the bear there. Report back here.
That bear has learned to associate humans with food from hangers, not folks that had food in their tents. Hangers kill bears. Hangers create "bad bears". I haven't read/heard anything to make me think otherwise.Tell you what - you guys go on up to Blood Mtn with your bags of food and test your theory on the bear there. Report back here.
I would bet even THAT bear fears humans enough to not come into someone's tent with them in it, or he would ALREADY be dead.
Just my opinion.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
sometimes i hang my food (usually when I'm with my son), sometimes I don't (usually when I'm alone and with my dog)....so don't have a "dog" in the hang / don't hang discussion....but there is a story of a bear attack on a boy in a tent who had sunscreen in a bag by the tent:
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/philmont-bear.html
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Well I know of a couple of PCT thru-hikers who have been awaken in the middle of the night in the Sierra Neveda to find their food sack that was under their feet or their head being pulled out by a bear when they were cowboy camping. Now mind you, they were legally suppose to be using a bear can in those areasCite me an incident where an individual was injured by a bear while sleeping with their food? I've never heard of one.
As for injuries, back in the late 80's, I remember a boy scout in our local mountains had a bear bite through the tent onto his head. It seems he had taken a snack to bed and had stored it under where his head was. It seems to be too old to find an internet link. However I did find the following incident by googling.
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbc...5002/-1/NEWS01
There are several other stories of black bear attacks on people in tents but they often don't give a reason for the attack. I suspect many don't fess up to improper food storage. The vast majority of these attacks happen in public campgrounds where I'm sure bears have found easy access to food over the years. But I have to wonder if camping near some of the popular shelters on the AT are any better in this regard.
As for me, I often sleep with my food near me (but I sleep in the open or under a Tarp where the bear can hopefully see what he's snacking on). However, if I'm in a known bear trouble area (and I can't avoid camping there which is my first defense) or the law requires bearcans, I do store my food properly.
There are trees not far away, if you prefer to hang. Most balds are rather small, it's not like going above tree line out west.
I both hung my food, and slept with it on my thru-hike, depending on the situation. If I knew there were bears around (shelter register, signs, scat, etc), I would hang my food or place it in a box if provided. Otherwise, my food came into the tent with me, or hung from the mouse hanger in a shelter. I never had a visitor in the shelters, and only had one encounter with a raccoon in my tent. I don't know if the raccoon stopped by because I had food in my tent, or if he was just looking for something cool to walk off with. Either way, it was a non-issue.
Now, there was a problem bear or two near Max Patch a couple years ago, if I remember correctly. Who knows if they are still around. There is a nice spot to camp as the trail reenters the forest going north, if you are looking for a spot to hang your food.
Yep, you're supposed to hang your food pretty far from you anyway. At least I put my food a distance from me such that if an animal does try to get in my food during the night, I shouldn't find out about it until morning.
Hanging your food too far from you is pointless as you need to know if its being attacked; I hang my pot/lid/spoon on the outside so they would bang together when a bear played with it as an alarm. Hanging should be looked at as only a delaying tactic until you can scare off the bear with noise and a previously collected pile of rocks. At least that is how we treated it in the Sierra Neveda before they required us to use a bearcan.
It's hardly pointless. Maybe you'll get up in the middle of a cold night and chase off animals, maybe even bears, but I'm going to let my food bag or canister do its job because I don't care for the possible issues that could arise with chasing off a hungry animal. Anyway, I've left my Ursack tied to a tree in the San Jacinto's for nearly 2 weeks. Unlike the slobber marks a cougar left on it a couple weeks earlier, this time there was a couple tiny holes on it when I retrieved it. Fortunately my note to other hikers asking them to leave the bag there was where I left it.
Anyway, I can see how you'd see a delicate hanging food bag as merely a delaying tactic, especially if it's low enough that a bear would even consider sending its cubs up to get it. That's why I've chosen to use something that's also tough to open up.
I think you can consider all black bears to be hungry all the time. They eat small stuff, mainly, and they eat pretty much all the time. So trying to find a sated bear is pretty hard, I would guess.
The first time I heard about an incident where a friend of mine chased off a black bear who was exploring his camp for food (He hit it on the nose with a paddle. He was swimming when the bear showed up. The bear skedaddled.) I was shocked. Later I realized this was not unusual bear behavior, nor unusual tripper behavior. While hiking, there are fewer paddles around, so a pile of rocks, a stick or noisemakers can be substituted. I don't claim this is without its excitement, but it is a way of discouraging the bear and preserving the food. On the AT the food may not be so important (except for training wild bears to be less wild), but on a canoe trip or a wild land trek it can be quite important. So leaving food where a bear can get to it is just not good practice.
PS.: I don't think this is as good an idea out west where the big browns roam. And up where the polar bears are around, it is more of a survival struggle. I understand they can be discouraged, but then so can people. Those are BIG bears, and they do sometimes eat people. So if they can't get your food, they might consider you to be an acceptable alternative. That's why guns are commonly carried as a discouragement, usually a 12 ga. with slugs. I would imaging discouraging a big bear up close with a smooth bore might be somewhat stimulating. I wouldn't know, myself.
I am becoming a fan of barrels and Ursacks to discourage all sorts of scavengers. These are an additional weight, but they do make it easier to win the food wars. I have carried a couple of weeks of food in a pickle barrel on a river trip, but while there were plenty of bears around, they declined my invitation, so I don't know if it was true that the plastic was bear proof. I have heard that it is, but the bear can bat it around, anyway. Since I tended to leave it in my canoe, I'm rather glad no bear showed up. Chasing a bear beating up a food barrel floating down the river, with a broken canoe, didn't strike me as the most amusing way to go about things.
Oh, this is about hiking on the AT? Never mind.
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