Monday Bear Blogging:
It seems that Yellow-Yellow of the Adirondacks is a very special bear, capable of opening the "BearVault 500" food canister, which had been designed to be bear-proof. Now it's back to the drawing board for BearVault's makers. They're using Yellow-Yellow to field test their next model.
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/2256/bowcrop2ty0.jpg
/Counting the days until the season starts.
Yellow-Yellow may be smarter than the rest. Or, she may have been lucky. (Just as humans differ on g so, I suspect, do bears.)
Before giving Yellow-Yellow the brightest bear award, let's see if she can do it again -- with a different container with different opening steps.
I told my 5-year-old son the story. Then I told him the company should just remove the instructions for opening the container.
If you had read the article, you'd know she already has.
Lighten up.
Not trying to be a heavy. You just seemed interested in the topic of the bear's canister opening abilities, and so I was passing on the fact.
As I read the OP and saw that there were 12 comments here, I wondered how many it would take to get to this. Ha ha.
, here), has now scolded me for commenting before reading.
Sorry, and thanks for the pointer. I study human intelligence and have done some work on intelligence in military working dogs.
The *REALLY* smart military dogs know how to get out of doing work. Once knew a German Shepard who skated so much they called him "Hans Brinker". The brass made him wear human tags.
Of course if what I have suggested is true there is only so far we can go. As Fishbane's post noted.
Sometimes, we as a species over-think things.
That would not explain why none of the other bears are able to open this vault.
Forget everything, we're doing five tabs
Well, there are a number of things that can explain it.
First, Yellow-Yellow's territory might bring her into contact with these more often than the other bears. Adult black bears don't like to be around each other for the most part (except for mating season, of course).
Second, some cases could possibly be attributed to Yellow-Yellow even though it was a different bear. In that case, other bears *ARE* doing it, it's just that Yellow-Yellow gets all the glory.
Third, the requirement for using bear proof containers in the 'dacks is pretty new, which means that they are probably pretty new to the people using them.
That was used by the team I went canoeing/backpacking with about 5 years ago.
IMO, this comment easily vaults above the others to become the thread-winner. Nice work arthur.
For example, think about being in the absolute middle of Nowhere National Forest, and discovering you had lost the keys to the food.
The idea is to frustrate the bear, not the humans.
I'm familiar with the Bear Vaults (some of my backpacking companions own them) and the other bear-proof containers that open with a coin or screwdriver (I own one). I'm pretty sure the things you suggest wouldn't work quite as well because
1) Those things add more weight. Weight was one of the main reasons my friends went with the Bear Vault instead of the kind I have. Remember, these are backpacker things. If you're car camping, you probably have a permanent bear-proof box at the site. If you're day camping, you don't need bear-proof containers. So weight is very important.
2) The locks you mention are a lot more likely to jam due to dirt and grime than simpler mechanisms. After I've been out a few days, I sometimes really have to force the simple latch with my screwdriver to get it to open. I can't imagine trying to use a standard key or combination lock instead.
3) Beyond just not allowing a bear to break into your food, the canister needs to make it hard for the bear to cart your food off. A bear could easily grab a padlock in its mouth and carry the whole thing away. Then, no food for you. In general, any mechanism you use has to not involve too many recesses or small bits that a bear could get teeth into.
4) You can lose the key. (as someone already mentioned)
So...does the old "suspended from a rope between trees" trick still work?
It depends where you go. At Yellowstone (as of summer 2008), they still said you could hang your food up. One ranger I talked to told me they had undergone a lot of effort there a few decades back to train bears not to mess with human food (and any that didn't learn were culled). They continue now to make sure bears are, ahem, given the proper incentives to stay away from human objects.
In most parks in California, bears have definitely learned to cut the rope, and bear cannisters are required. The article says this is the case for New York as well. I'm not sure about other areas.
You mean the right to keep and arm bears?
Adding a bit to that, to address the concerns about losing the key: why not a combination lock, built in to the lid (i.e. fewer holes to grab on to), perhaps with a flexible cover to keep grime out but allow fingers to manipulate the dial, and, of course, have the combination printed directly on the canister? I don't think that anyone is concerned with having humans swipe each other's food, nor about semi-literate bears who could somehow turn a dial, but we are worried about illiterate but handy bears.
I also have heard claims that the PCT method works well for preventing bears from getting into food, but I've never needed to try it personally (and also haven't had an opportunity to do so since learning about it).
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