Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

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AlmostThere
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by AlmostThere »

I use the PCT method most of the time - it's still difficult (for me, with my girly arms) to hoist up a food bag without getting rope burn, but there are workarounds for that.

One of the group is a counterbalance pro - she can get the food in two sacks up high and far from the tree. I'm still working on a good throwing arm. I usually just take a canister unless there are no bears and I can get away with a lame hang to keep the coons out.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by Ozark Flip »

I thought moth balls were a snake deterrant. :lol:

Myself, being a packer, I'm curious to hear how other packers store their food. Anyone else on HST frequently pack with animals? If so, how do you store your food? Anyone hired a pack service? If so, how did they store the food? Anyone else ever seen a group of backcountry visitors with a large scale cooler, somewhere remote, at least two days in? They did not carry it in.

I have been stopped by rangers requesting to see my permit and cannister. I would show them the permit then open up a pannier, show them a cannister and they were okay. One time, they were fine simply 'feeling' the cannister from the outside of the pack. Seven remaining panniers unchecked which could have bookoo food stored improperly (not in approved cannisters). As long as you have "a" required cannister, life is good.

Also, don't think for one minute that pack animals deter problem bears. I own both horse and llamas and have traveled with both. Problem bears will stroll right through camp unphased by terrified pack animal alerts.
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Jay
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by Jay »

AlmostThere wrote:

I've always thought that it would be worth a try for the FS to start shooting bears in areas like Yosemite with paintball guns as long as they changed the kind of ammo they used. I say shoot them every chance they get with paint balls filled with pepper spray instead of paint. At the same time they could place booby traped ice chests, backpacks, bear lockers, and just about anything else with bear spray. Of course the baited pepper traps would have to be marked or protected somehow from the public. My point is that because of a bears intelligence I don't think it would take much for them to get wise to the smell of pepper spray. After that all you would have to do is wipe the smallest amount of pepper juice on the bottom of your pack tent or even ice chest and I don't think that a bear would come within a 100yds of your camp.
Pepper spray doesn't work that way. It needs to go into the mucous membrane of the target animal, not the coat of the animal. It only works if you spray it in the eyes/nose. You can't booby trap anything with it and expect to get a reliable dose administered where it needs to go.

As someone who's had pepper spray I can tell you it does nothing when it's on your skin. It's when you forget you handled the nozzle, rub your eye, and get a tiny bit of it in the corner that you realize it's there.
They make paintballs filled with a powdered pepper. They use it on people resiting arrest. It hits them in the chest, they instictively gasp, and the powder instantly goes into the nose and mouth and does it's job. That could be applied in the way that he mentions, and then just the smell on a pack would be a deterent. Not saying it would be succesful, but you can deliver an effective pepper dose ballistically, it doesnt have to be in a spray.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

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As I understand it the irritating effect is rather short lived. Then the remaining odor of capsaicn will be food! So spraying your pack with the stuff is likely to prove an attractant! Don't know what the effect of the taste will be. If the bear has roots south of the border it might really like the taste of it. A midwestern the bear might be deterred. Strictly a western bear???? ;)

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AlmostThere
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by AlmostThere »

Jay wrote:
They make paintballs filled with a powdered pepper. They use it on people resiting arrest. It hits them in the chest, they instictively gasp, and the powder instantly goes into the nose and mouth and does it's job. That could be applied in the way that he mentions, and then just the smell on a pack would be a deterent. Not saying it would be succesful, but you can deliver an effective pepper dose ballistically, it doesnt have to be in a spray.
So you're willing to play roulette with your chances of running across only bears who have experienced the sting of pepper spray to the point that just the smell deters them? Or will there be a budget to go train all the bears in any given area to avoid the smell rather than be captivated by that unfamiliar smell and seek it out to test their theory that it might be the smell of something yummy?

Bear canisters are better insurance for my money....

ETA: bear spray. I have canisters on the brain. arg.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by gary c. »

I didn't mean to suggest that pepper spray could or would replace bear cans and other current policies, I completely support the use of bear cans. I just think that it could be another tool to discourage them from even comming around.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

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Why would you like them not to come around if your food is safe? Black Bears are cool and if you treat them with a little respect they are pretty safe to be around. I won't allow them to linger in my camp but savor every siting and encounter. On several occasions I have been lucky enough to be able to observe bears for extended periods doing what they do--ripping up logs looking for grubs and just kind of ambling around, even got to watch one stand up next to a large jeffry pine stretch out and pull its claws down the bark, that was one big bear by the way. He reached up much higher than I could but I'm not very tall.

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gary c.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by gary c. »

oldranger wrote:Why would you like them not to come around if your food is safe? Black Bears are cool and if you treat them with a little respect they are pretty safe to be around. I won't allow them to linger in my camp but savor every siting and encounter.
Mike
I agree completely, I love to watch them in the back country or anywhere else actually. It is places where they get habituated to humans like YV and campgrounds that I would would like to see a little fear instilled in the bears. For there own protection more than anything else.
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AlmostThere
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by AlmostThere »

For black bears in my state, I have no need to keep them far away, and enjoy seeing them. You give them a wide berth and take pictures, but no need to fear, just respect them and give them space. In many places they are still so wild that they won't come near you as a matter of course. Seeing them is a treat.

For Alaska, I would never go alone or unarmed on any trip into the wilderness of extended duration. Bear spray AND a gun. Talked to too many former Alaskans to do otherwise.

For other places the brown bears roam... I'd take the bear spray and some other people, and follow the usual recommendations, including the ones not to have any scent other than my own on my person - I know that bears are very smart and very curious, and that they will explore and investigate interesting smells - I just don't want them that close to me.

Other people can play around with experimental deterrents as they choose. I can see how you might think the pepper spray deterrent would work, but for the reasons I mentioned I don't think it could work really well. Bears in Yosemite still play with canisters despite their ongoing exposure to them and not getting the food reward, after all. We had bears in our camp monkeying with the canisters 3 out of 5 nights on one trip. And if they aren't afraid of people after being chased around all summer by rangers with paintball guns, why would anything I do have an effect? They come right back through the campgrounds just the same.
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Re: Contoversial Bear Repellant Techniques

Post by oldranger »

I was taught that when in Alaska you want to make sure that at least one of your companions is slower than you! :D At my age that is hard to do!

Mike
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