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  1. #61

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    To help fund the enforcement of the required hard sided food canisters on public lands we need to expand and rename the Pitman Robertson act. The act's excise taxes need not only apply to recreational hunting/shooting equipment, but to most all other outdoor recreational equipment that is used on our public lands. From ATV tires to trail runners and backpacks, paddles and climbing harnesses to binoculars and trout flies, lets put it all under one funding umbrella and create a new managing agency that we all have equal voice in staffing and overseeing. And just as a hunter's safety course is required prior to getting a hunting license, there should be required competency & ethics courses and testing for those who wish to backpack amongst bears and coyotes, fish and float in native trout waters, graze stock animals and do donuts all over back of beyond, etc... Unification, education, and equal representation of all outdoor public lands users is critical to our land and all the life forms who rely on it. In the mean time, sleeping with food in your tent, storing food in puncturable porous bags, and being sloppy with your food hangs are the very best ways to insure that you will soon be required to cary a food canister. It's already working.

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by August W. View Post
    To help fund the enforcement of the required hard sided food canisters on public lands we need to expand and rename the Pitman Robertson act. The act's excise taxes need not only apply to recreational hunting/shooting equipment, but to most all other outdoor recreational equipment that is used on our public lands. From ATV tires to trail runners and backpacks, paddles and climbing harnesses to binoculars and trout flies, lets put it all under one funding umbrella and create a new managing agency that we all have equal voice in staffing and overseeing. And just as a hunter's safety course is required prior to getting a hunting license, there should be required competency & ethics courses and testing for those who wish to backpack amongst bears and coyotes, fish and float in native trout waters, graze stock animals and do donuts all over back of beyond, etc... Unification, education, and equal representation of all outdoor public lands users is critical to our land and all the life forms who rely on it. In the mean time, sleeping with food in your tent, storing food in puncturable porous bags, and being sloppy with your food hangs are the very best ways to insure that you will soon be required to cary a food canister. It's already working.
    I can agree with this part: sleeping with food in your tent, storing food in puncturable porous bags, and being sloppy with your food hangs are the very best ways to insure that you will soon be required to cary a food canister. It's already working. I can't get on board with the rest, sounds too much like a ready-made solution in search of a problem. The fact that lots of people discuss this on the internet in hyperbolic language doesn't mean the situation is actually dire, and certainly not enough to justify the leap to draconian control you describe.

  3. #63

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    Quote Originally Posted by August W. View Post
    To help fund the enforcement of the required hard sided food canisters on public lands we need to expand and rename the Pitman Robertson act. The act's excise taxes need not only apply to recreational hunting/shooting equipment, but to most all other outdoor recreational equipment that is used on our public lands.
    LOL, the official IT uniform at my company is an oxford shirt with a Patagonia/Columbia fleece vest. Those guys have never been to the woods. They (and most everyone else) will rightfully throw a fit over such a tax.

  4. #64
    Registered User Christoph's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AsoloBootsSuk View Post
    Who would administer such an exam? Pay for it? Enforce? To be tax neutral, you'll need to create a back-country permit system. It's multi state, so you better go federal. Given the number of AT hikers and the required size of such a program, I think $250 per year per person would work. Neither humans or black bears are an endangered species, let God sort it out. We don't need more mumbo-jumbo regs. Just my opinion, YRMV

    THIS ^ exactly! Seriously, you can't honestly think the weekend party goers that drive up and trash the nearest shelter for a fun overnighter are going to take a test before they head out? So now, there's more regulations and a test on the ones that are doing it the right way to begin with? Competency and ethics exam to walk in the woods. Absolutely not. It's bad enough there's consideration where everyone must carry a bear canister because a few that can't seem to get the food storage thing right. No class or exam is going to keep someone from throwing wrappers trailside or in the fire pit, etc.. There's already a simple LNT which everyone already knows about but choose not to do it. One more thing comes to mind before I end my little rant... Oh look! There's a bear. Let's get as close as humanly possible to get that cell phone pic for everyone on Facebook/Instagram to see how cool and wild I am.
    Last edited by Christoph; 02-21-2020 at 10:39.
    - Trail name: Thumper

  5. #65
    Registered User greentick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AsoloBootsSuk View Post
    Spec ops, neat. I'd be too scared to do combat like you. I do hunt for about 30% of our meat. 1-3 whitetails each year and a BB if I'm really lucky.
    LOL. Range flags up!
    nous défions

    It's gonna be ok.

    Ditch Medicine: wash your hands and keep your booger-pickers off your face!

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by AsoloBootsSuk View Post
    LOL, the official IT uniform at my company is an oxford shirt with a Patagonia/Columbia fleece vest. Those guys have never been to the woods. They (and most everyone else) will rightfully throw a fit over such a tax.
    Of course, if you note the original listing, such items aren't listed, more actual equipment (tires, backpacks, climbing harnesses etc.) than clothing (trail runners being the one exception, but one can get other shoes that aren't particularly for that).

    Quote Originally Posted by August W. View Post
    The act's excise taxes need not only apply to recreational hunting/shooting equipment, but to most all other outdoor recreational equipment that is used on our public lands. From ATV tires to trail runners and backpacks, paddles and climbing harnesses to binoculars and trout flies, lets put it all under one funding umbrella and create a new managing agency that we all have equal voice in staffing and overseeing.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Slo-go'en View Post
    When a bear becomes a nusense bear, which it will once it starts scoring hiker food, it becomes a dead bear. Otherwise, it has a fair chance of avoiding the hunters.

    So using canisters can save a bear from certian death. It will also save you from having to deal with a possibly aggressive bear in the mean time.

    That said, I will resist using a canister as long as I can...
    Right on


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tipi Walter View Post
    Once discovered the bruins will roll a canister wherever they want. I had two Bearvaults set up in a cache and Mr Bear found it and swatted the things a couple hundred feet off the hill and did some gnawing but never got the food. I guess he got frustrated cuz he came back and found my emergency Prolite sleeping pad and got to chewing---
    The one wilderness area near me that requires them doesn't allow the BV450/BV500. Too many Adirondack bears know how to open them. (I probably have a Bearikade in my future, now that NYSDEC has decreed that bear canisters are required everywhere in High Peaks. It used to be that hanging was lawful west of the Street-Nye ridge or in th Boreas Ponds or Dix Mountain areas, but no more.)
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paleolith54 View Post
    I can agree with this part: sleeping with food in your tent, storing food in puncturable porous bags, and being sloppy with your food hangs are the very best ways to insure that you will soon be required to cary a food canister. It's already working.
    Sleeping with food is OK, but you have to have the discipline to bring it with you _whenever_ you step away from it, _including_ those 3 am calls of nature.

    Very few hikers are both too lazy to do proper food storage and disciplined enough to keep their food with them at all times.

    Up where I am, sleeping with food is also tolerable from about December to March, when the bears are asleep. Even when they go for a stroll in a winter warm spell, they're too groggy even to notice food. Down South, they never go properly to sleep. (I still avoid sleeping with food since the time I was awakened in the middle of the night in -8 °F weather by a raccoon dragging my pack away.)
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  10. #70
    GSMNP 900 Miler
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    Quote Originally Posted by Another Kevin View Post
    Sleeping with food is OK...
    Depends upon the local bear population and the camping regulations for where you are located.

    Perhaps along the bulk of the AT, where bear density isn't very high and camping is a bit dispersed... it might be ok.

    But places (such a GSMNP) where bear population is high, and everyone camps at the same sight every night, sleeping with your food leads to ploblems (often problems for those that come after you).

    Now of course in GSMNP, every campsite has bear cables, so there is no excuse to NOT hang (not to mention it's illegal to sleep with your food). But every year, people do it, and every year, camp sites get closed down for a month or more because of it.

  11. #71
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    I have read through this thread and can see both sides of the argument for canisters. I am new to hiking, but have hiked a couple of times, last year from winding stair gap to the NOC and the year before I hiked the Fiery Gizzard. I am still working on getting all my gear right and am looking for a reasonable way to store my food. When I have hiked, I do hang my food, but should i stick to an opsack stored in a regular dry sack or should I get an Ursack? I don't think I want to get a canister, just yet, they seem too bulky for packing. Thanks.

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trail Money View Post
    I have read through this thread and can see both sides of the argument for canisters. I am new to hiking, but have hiked a couple of times, last year from winding stair gap to the NOC and the year before I hiked the Fiery Gizzard. I am still working on getting all my gear right and am looking for a reasonable way to store my food. When I have hiked, I do hang my food, but should i stick to an opsack stored in a regular dry sack or should I get an Ursack? I don't think I want to get a canister, just yet, they seem too bulky for packing. Thanks.
    If you're hanging, an Ursack is a waste of money, IMO.

    Regarding the discussion above on sleeping with your food: obviously there are times of the year and locations where it's OK. Obvious, but beside the point. The point is that for the AT and environs during what most think of as hiking season land managers are being driven to require hard-sided canisters by those who are too stupid or lazy to hang properly; who teach bears to investigate tents for food by sleeping with their food; or by (incredibly) "hiding" food away from camp on the ground. Oh, and leaving trash behind. Whether canisters will actually accomplish much is debatable, but the drivers are pretty clear.

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paleolith54 View Post
    If you're hanging, an Ursack is a waste of money, IMO.
    Good point,makes sense. Thanks.

  14. #74

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    Quote Originally Posted by peakbagger View Post
    There is no point. Some PR person is just desperately trying to come up with reasons to convince people to stop feeding bears by poor food storage practices which leads to more bear human interactions. In the vast majority of states the bear populations are over management levels. The problem is generally too many bears not to few.
    CORRECT!
    Bear management has increased the population. Longer hunting seasons could help this. If there were no hunting of the black bear, the bear/human interaction would be greater. I have seen bear on the trail, not once have they seemed interested in me except a quick glance. Generally, I smell them before I see or hear them.

  15. #75

    Thumbs up BOrG

    Quote Originally Posted by 4eyedbuzzard View Post
    We are the BORG (Bureau of Outdoor Required Gear). Your existence as you know it is over. You and your technological distinctiveness will be assimilated to service us. Lower your hang bags and surrender. Resistance is futile.
    The new slogan for GSMNP "Best seen from the comfort of your own Vehicle".

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