Are bears a real problem? What is the human thing to do when you see them? Do they sneak into your tents? Do I need to worry?

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rick
Are bears a real problem?

Yes.

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What is the human thing to do when you see them?

Grab your camera and start taking pictures.

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Do they sneak into your tents? Do I need to worry?

If you don't keep food in your tent, you won't have a problem.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. We are not in their food chain.
2. They are very sensitive to possession. If you have it in hand they will not try to take it away, if they have it in hand it's theirs.

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Old Dude

Clean your car out. Have everything in boxes that needs to go in the lockers. Make sure everything smellable makes it out of the car and into the lockers each time you leave the campsite, or the car in a parking lot. In other words, follow the rules they will hand you at the gate, and post on their website, all the time.

And don't worry. Take pictures of the bears when they come around to say hi.

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AlmostThere
And don't worry. Take pictures of the bears when they come around to say hi.

But don't do something silly, like trying to pose with them.

Is it advisable to take pictures? Will the bears approach us? Is it an issue if we run?

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michaelrosso
Is it advisable to take pictures?

Sure, why not?


http://yosemitephotos.net/main.php/v/yosemite/shaggy-bear.jpg.html

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Will the bears approach us? Is it an issue if we run?

They like to keep their distance. But you might get a mock charge from a bear. Just stand your ground.

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michaelrosso
Is it advisable to take pictures? Will the bears approach us? Is it an issue if we run?

I found that taking pictures can be quite dangerous.

My wife almost killed me when she saw the picture I took of our kids on their first backpacking trip (taken at Glen Aulin).

Great photo! The bear might have been attracted by the water bottle near the sleeping bag of your son.

We tent camp in the valley and have seen bears as close as five feet from our tent, mostly in the middle of the night (the biggest ones seem to come out at night). We weren't scared or worried, mostly just fascinated and enjoyed the show. They have never bothered us as we put everything scented (and I mean everything) in the bear box provided, and put everything away as soon as we were done using it. If you are "lucky" enough, you might observe someone getting a 15-30 minute ranger speech about the importance of the bear box and following the rules (and by lucky I mean someone wasn't following the rules - we have observed this on many occasions. Many people don't take the rules seriously and get schooled and/or fined by a justified angry ranger).

We have seen bears go up to people's campsites including tents, trailers and motor homes where people keep their empty liquor bottles, pots and pans, and misc. scented stuff outside. Then people will bang their pots and pans or yell go away bear and the bear leaves. For a while anyway... (because some people just never learn but the bears sure do).

Just follow the rules and you will be fine!

Robin

Never run. You won't outrun a bear. Stand your ground or face them while slowly backing away. But they're mainly herbivores, so any attacks that happen are generally due to protection of cubs, provocation, or surprising them (they go into your tent to eat the apple under your pillow and they find you on top of the apple).

In short, keep food out of your car while it's parked and keep food out of your tent ALWAYS. Not just food, but anything with a potent odor. Toothpaste, deodorant, perfume, anything scented, etc. You'll be fine as long as you use common sense and separate your parked cars and sleeping areas from where food is stored or prepared.

In the bizarre case that you are attacked, fight back with whatever objects you have. Aim for eyes, nose, and other sensitive spots. Black bears (the type present in Yosemite) are much easier to scare away and to halt an attack than Grizzlies, which haven't been in Cali for a long, long time.

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/scarebears.htm

I am glad there are only black bears. Why have the grizzly left Cali?

They started being killed off by the miners during the gold rush. The last one was killed in 1924. Just like wolfs were killed off in Europe. Humans tend to kill off anything that is a danger to them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2011 04:49PM by qumqats.

What I read, it was mainly the ranchers and sheep herders that killed off the grizzlies because the bears attacked and killed their livestock.

The California grizzlies natural habitat wasn't the mid and higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada where the black bears live, but it was the Central Valley and the Sierra foothills (and also in the Coastal Valleys and Coastal Range of California). Again, it was mostly ranchers that killed them off, though some were also hunted down for sport.

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plawrence
What I read, it was mainly the ranchers and sheep herders that killed off the grizzlies because the bears attacked and killed their livestock.

The California grizzlies natural habitat wasn't the mid and higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada where the black bears live, but it was the Central Valley and the Sierra foothills (and also in the Coastal Valleys and Coastal Range of California). Again, it was mostly ranchers that killed them off, though some were also hunted down for sport.

The natural habitat was everywhere. Coastal grizzlies would apparently hunt sea lions and seals. There were apparently some grizzlies even in San Francisco around the 1900s.

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rick
Why have the grizzly left Cali?

Humans killed them all.

I thought it was lead poisoning.

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Old Dude

I've had them circle the tent on seperate occassions (the smell of my hair shampoo maybe?) and one came into our site while I was cooking hotdogs. The nieghbor campers hopped ontop of their picnic table, that was comical.
This one bear (in Upper Pines) was mischievous . He'd circle the tent, hide when the ranger came (come back later), and ran off with a nieghbors backpack. My son and I laughed at the backback run...those nieghbors were clueless, they would let their children ride bikes through campsites.

One thing I would advise is wearing a whistle. My son and I always wear whistles, when camping...just good measure with camping, in general...including bears. The one thing I don't advise, is startling a bear in close proximity. I wait until the bear is a few feet from my tent, before blowing it...just a thought. Naturally, if the bear is trying to get into the tent, then blow like a mofo. hahaha!

One thing I've learned about bears is that they hate confrontation. If you have a dog or camp near someone that has a dog, they usually won't bother. Dogs will blow their cover. They are extemely quiet, when comming through your site, unless they find something they like. Bears usually wait until every camplight is out in the campground (there are exceptions, like above) before entering. Odds are, if you've camped in yosemite, a bear has come through your site, while you were asleep, and you didn't know it. They are that prevalent.

They aren't kidding about bear boxes! If you leave any food out, they will come get it...no doubt about it.

We were sitting in chairs enjoying the afternoon along Tenaya Creek in North Pines and along came a bear. Right into the campground area. I simply shouted "go away bear" in a deeper than usual voice and the bear freaked out and ran away. It ran across the creek and looked back at us, and I yelled again. It didn't come back while we were there. Just make some noise, but try to make it loud.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2011 10:34PM by robinjayp.

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Red Lipstick
One thing I've learned about bears is that they hate confrontation. If you have a dog or camp near someone that has a dog, they usually won't bother. Dogs will blow their cover. They are extemely quiet, when comming through your site, unless they find something they like. Bears usually wait until every camplight is out in the campground (there are exceptions, like above) before entering. Odds are, if you've camped in yosemite, a bear has come through your site, while you were asleep, and you didn't know it. They are that prevalent.

Depends on the bear species. The American black bear generally hates confrontation. I've heard of several theories. One is that they've adapted over the years to avoiding the more aggressive grizzly/brown bear species. Another is that the vast majority of the more aggressive members of the species would have been killed over the years by humans if there was any confrontation. Various Asian bear species are known to be predatory.

Brown bears (including grizzlies and Kodiaks) can be aggressive. I've heard of grizzlies not backing down when confronting the considerably more powerful polar bear.

Bill-e-g has a wonderful picture of a sign posted in Yosemite, telling you what to do -- visually -- if you see a bear. It shows people banging pots and pans together and yelling!

*insert picture here*

ok, here it is:


(if you can get a picture of a bear like that... POST IT)
(and eeek, can we have a new bear picture please)

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The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2011 09:56PM by bill-e-g.

I love that picture!!!!!! (the expression on the bear is priceless!!!!!!!!!!!!)

EEEEK!! could you turn that sign into an icon??? (I may have asked before and it involved some sort of copywrite gobblygook)

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The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.

I love that sign too! It tells you to bang pots together, but I keep mine in the bear box! I do keep a small air horn accessible though, but have never had to use it.

Wouldn't it be great if in the picture the dad was hiding behind the mom instead of the little boy? I've experienced something like that first hand.

I also love how the sign says to report all sightings to a ranger. Well, good luck with that. Sometimes they are never around. And if you do find one, they are not the right type of ranger.... I have told rangers about bear sightings in the past only to have them simply shrug and not ask for details...

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robinjayp
Wouldn't it be great if in the picture the dad was hiding behind the mom instead of the little boy? I've experienced something like that first hand.

Next time take a picture!

Haha. That is just sad.

Can't exactly do that when you are the one someone is hiding behind!!!

LOL I have a goal now...A bear action shot! That sign is comical, but it gets the point across.

lol. That bear is making the same face that I make when my friends/family embarrass me.

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rick
Are bears a real problem? What is the human thing to do when you see them? Do they sneak into your tents? Do I need to worry?

This is much scarier than any Yosemite bear:

That is scarier than a bear! I hope gases prices will drop back to normal by summer time :-(.

Yikes. Is that in the valley? It is not that expensive where I live yet. Are there gas stations near the valley?

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michaelrosso
Yikes. Is that in the valley?

No, there is no public gas station in the Valley.

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It is not that expensive where I live yet. Are there gas stations near the valley?

The picture is from Tuolumne Meadows on May 31, 2008. But with current prices in the Los Angeles area I wouldn't be surprised to see it that high this summer.

2008? OK, must be even higher now.

A bear killed our tent when we were glamping at the Evergreen Lodge, outside Hetch Hetchy a couple of years ago. We were following all the rules about keeping everything remotely food-related in the bear box. We're both long-time campers, and well aware of how bears operate. Unfortunately, the idiot teenagers in the tent next to us were eating peanut butter and crackers in their tent at night. You'd think that that first night when we heard the bear dragging the bear box around would have cured them of that. That was scary enough. But then the next night, hearing the bear pad around our tent, sniffing was even more scary.

The third night, when we were in the showers, the campsite got very very quiet. When I came out, all I found was one of the groundskeepers with a flashlight next to what had been our tent. The bear had destroyed it. Strangely, s/he seemed to be after our dirty clothes bag, which had been dragged across the floor of the tent.

We got a lecture from the folks at the front desk, but we swore up and down that we didn't even had as much as an antacid in the tent. When we talked with an actual ranger from HH, we were told stories of known bad bears in the area.

We also learned that the weekend before we showed up, some guy was staying at the lodge with 100 pounds of dog food in his trunk. You can imagine his surprise when he woke to find his car destroyed. You can also imagine the non-surprise of anyone who knows anything about bears.

In the last 20 years I have probably seen 60+ bears while hiking in Yosemite. I have seen many more feeding early in the morning by Crane Flat on the road, while I was in a car. I have also seen countless bears in Mammoth, either hiking or in the campgrounds.

I've never encountered an aggresive bear, not even when with cubs. Almost every time in Yosemite I have bumped into them on the trail while hiking, they run away (VERY fast, some of them!) It breaks my heart that people erroneously think bears are violent or ferocious. They are generally shy and timid when in the presence of people, unless they're foolishly being fed.

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Ulysses61
I've never encountered an aggresive bear, not even when with cubs. Almost every time in Yosemite I have bumped into them on the trail while hiking, they run away (VERY fast, some of them!) It breaks my heart that people erroneously think bears are violent or ferocious. They are generally shy and timid when in the presence of people, unless they're foolishly being fed.

This is true of the American black bears found in California. The grizzly bears found in Wyoming, Montana and Canada, and the Alaskan brown bears are a different matter altogether as are the polar bears. Those bears are lot more agressive towards humans and are not as passive as the American black bears that reside in California are.

The black bears that live in California are as laid back as many of California's human residents.

But they're still a wild animal, and I'd rather people treat them with a mixture of fear and respect than act cavalier around them. My SO tells of one family trip to Yosemite in the early 70s, and watching a woman chase down a bear to give it her sandwich so she could get a picture of it. That makes me sad.

I would be thrilled to find a bear on a trail. But the way I huff and puff, I'm not likely to surprise one.

If the bear you see on the trail doesn't run tail... then it's habituated.
The only decent photos I have of bears are Yogi type.

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Here's another favorite:



Scanned it off a 1941 map.

Hmm... I wonder how people get the ideas that they do?

(p.s. don't fool with me either TOD!, I be danger-ous!)

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I say reintroduce the Grizzly/timber wolves(wolves are on there way out this way, supposedly). Maybe it will scare off some of the tourists. hahaha
I doubt it will though...They don't scare them in Yellowstone, from the looks of their tourist numbers.
Worth a shot, just the same.

Haha. Lovely. I guess it still applies today.

You always seem to have the nice old photos. Do you collect them?

I guess it wasn't common sense back then?

That is hilarious. Maybe that is why the rangers gives you the bear talk every time you enter your campground. Education is key.

We shoudl get a badge to skip the talk, but I guess they just helping to protect everyone. The photos at the kiosks with bears and total cost of damage that year/month always frightens me a bit.

$4.95 yesterday.

I think I am now more confused than before. It seems the bears will pretty much keep to themslves then.

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rick
I think I am now more confused than before. It seems the bears will pretty much keep to themslves then.

LOL. No.

They keep to themselves unless there is food to be had. Then they will walk up to you and look at you and the food in your hand, and you must yell and let them know they should go away.

Just follow the rules, you'll be fine.

While checking the Sierra NF site, I saw this: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sierra/recreation/camping/index.shtml

Specifically:
Keeping a neat campsite, free of trash and discarding all food containers, will help protect Forest wildlife. Bears, raccoons, and other critters generally become a problem in campgrounds when visitors are careless with food storage. Store food items in the trunk or inside your automobile with the windows closed. Bears consider all products with an odor as food. Toothpaste, suntan lotion, insect repellent, and chewing gum should be stored carefully. To help maintain a clean, safe environment, please place trash in provided receptacles or pack it out. When campfire rings or stoves are used, please make certain your fire is cold prior to leaving the campsite.

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itchbay
While checking the Sierra NF site, I saw this: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sierra/recreation/camping/index.shtml

Specifically:
Keeping a neat campsite, free of trash and discarding all food containers, will help protect Forest wildlife. Bears, raccoons, and other critters generally become a problem in campgrounds when visitors are careless with food storage. Store food items in the trunk or inside your automobile with the windows closed. Bears consider all products with an odor as food. Toothpaste, suntan lotion, insect repellent, and chewing gum should be stored carefully. To help maintain a clean, safe environment, please place trash in provided receptacles or pack it out. When campfire rings or stoves are used, please make certain your fire is cold prior to leaving the campsite.

Remember that such things as breaking into cars or defeating standard bear bagging is a learned thing. The large majority of the American black bear population simply doesn't know how to break into cars or won't go crazy trying to kamikaze jump hung bags.

I've camped in area where there were black bears. I was specifically told by NPS rangers in those areas that the want food stored inside a vehicle (even if visible through the window) because birds, squirrels, and other small animals might be attracted to food stored outside. They weren't terribly worried about bears.

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itchbay
Store food items in the trunk or inside your automobile with the windows closed. Bears consider all products with an odor as food. Toothpaste, suntan lotion, insect repellent, and chewing gum should be stored carefully. To help maintain a clean, safe environment, please place trash in provided receptacles or pack it out. When campfire rings or stoves are used, please make certain your fire is cold prior to leaving the campsite.

These are the bears who went to University of Phoenix instead of Harvard...

They just don't know how yet. Hopefully they never learn. I suspect Yosemite bears learned to hop in open windows first, then when the windows were shut they learned to bust or pull out the window...

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AlmostThere

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itchbay
Store food items in the trunk or inside your automobile with the windows closed. Bears consider all products with an odor as food. Toothpaste, suntan lotion, insect repellent, and chewing gum should be stored carefully. To help maintain a clean, safe environment, please place trash in provided receptacles or pack it out. When campfire rings or stoves are used, please make certain your fire is cold prior to leaving the campsite.

These are the bears who went to University of Phoenix instead of Harvard...

They just don't know how yet. Hopefully they never learn. I suspect Yosemite bears learned to hop in open windows first, then when the windows were shut they learned to bust or pull out the window...

For the most part it's believed that mama bears that have figured it out teach the same behavior to their cubs. Then there are bears that see other bears doing this and emulate it.

I recall at the coastal portion Olympic NP a park ranger said during a campfire program that there were at least four known black bears in the area. He indicated that they avoided people ("the hate people" was the exact phrase) because there was legal hunting in the area. I'm not sure about Mt Rainier, but the only requirement was that food should be stored inside the car.

When I was at Yellowstone (not camping) the requirement was that food should be in the trunk or otherwise out of sight. It sounds as if they've occasionally had bears breaking into cars if they saw food through a window.

So Yosemite is where bears have mastered breaking into cars. They have a similar prohibition on food storage at SEKI. Tahoe is interesting too. All campgrounds in the area have bear boxes and require that cars be cleared of food at night. However - there are so many places where such restrictions aren't in place. You could be parking at the Harrah's Lake Tahoe parking lot where there are occasionally bears nearby. I think they tend to avoid getting too close because of all the people. South Lake Tahoe doesn't seem to have too many problems, but I suppose the smaller communities around Tahoe probably have less traffic for bears to avoid.

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y_p_w
So Yosemite is where bears have mastered breaking into car.

So I guess Yosemite bears are smarter than the average bear.

But that shouldn't surprise me because I personally know a lot of Bears that graduated from Cal.

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y_p_w


I recall at the coastal portion Olympic NP a park ranger said during a campfire program that there were at least four known black bears in the area. He indicated that they avoided people ("the hate people" was the exact phrase) because there was legal hunting in the area. I'm not sure about Mt Rainier, but the only requirement was that food should be stored inside the car.

When I was at Yellowstone (not camping) the requirement was that food should be in the trunk or otherwise out of sight. It sounds as if they've occasionally had bears breaking into cars if they saw food through a window.

So Yosemite is where bears have mastered breaking into cars. They have a similar prohibition on food storage at SEKI. Tahoe is interesting too. All campgrounds in the area have bear boxes and require that cars be cleared of food at night. However - there are so many places where such restrictions aren't in place. You could be parking at the Harrah's Lake Tahoe parking lot where there are occasionally bears nearby. I think they tend to avoid getting too close because of all the people. South Lake Tahoe doesn't seem to have too many problems, but I suppose the smaller communities around Tahoe probably have less traffic for bears to avoid.

I think the "bears are afraid where they are hunted" is a myth - they have problems in wilderness areas, too. Dinkey Wilderness has enough issues that rangers will strongly urge you to use a canister, but accept a counterbalance hang. I think it has more to do with the number of people backpacking in the area, increasing the bears' exposure to easy pickings. Huge game of roulette. The more chances the bears get, the more payoff, the more interest they have in people's food.

Yosemite is at a disadvantage because the park service used to encourage bear feeding. Generations upon generations of bears enjoying people's leavings - teaching each other and their cubs how to get that wonderful, high calorie nummy stuff.

A friend's truck was broken into at Jenny Lakes Wilderness - the parking lot has no lockers, the nearby campgrounds do. He was fined for letting a bear get a food reward. Stuff was locked out of sight in the truck bed, under a locked hard top. We think it was really people, looking for tools, but animals clearly got what was strewn around the blacktop - the wrappers were licked and torn and mangled. If it was a bear, well, that's national forest, not protected area. And the rangers are really giving mixed messages because they will tell you on the phone (I called and directly asked "IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH BEARS AT TRAILHEAD PARKING) that there are no bear issues there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2011 09:19PM by AlmostThere.

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AlmostThere
Yosemite is at a disadvantage because the park service used to encourage bear feeding. Generations upon generations of bears enjoying people's leavings - teaching each other and their cubs how to get that wonderful, high calorie nummy stuff.

That's the case at almost every NPS unit that has bears. I remember hearing and/or seeing photos of the grandstands set up at garbage dumps in Yosemite, SEKI, etc for scheduled bear feedings. It was easily as common at Yellowstone too, although that's not as concentrated as Yosemite Valley in terms of people and or opportunities to get food. Bears do go after human food a many other places. What sets Yosemite (and a few other places) apart is the creativity and car break-ins.

The rangers do check cars at night. One year I noticed someone looking in my car with a flashlight in the middle of the night. I called out from my tent and it was a ranger looking for storage violations in cars (they did this many times during our visit). The ranger then went to the next campsite, woke the people up, and told them to take their visible cooler out of their car and put it in the bear box. They actually argued with the ranger and finally complied. I believe they received a ticket too. Once the ranger left, they took the cooler out of the bear box and put it back in their car. Sigh...

If the bears become aggressive, they are likely to be put down. Proper storage and following the rules help prevent this from happening.

Bears are a wonder to see, but some people just don't understand that we are encroaching on their territory. We saw a lovely mom and her two cubs frolicking in the field by the stables. The next day we only saw the cubs, but no mamma bear. We asked a worker at the stables what the story was, and apparently some young boys had decided to throw some rocks at the cubs. The mom charged the boys and as a result, the mom was captured and put down. Because she became aggressive. So sad.... I did ask if the boys had rocks thrown at them as punishment. Unfortunately, no but he did tell us that the parents had to pay for the bear to be put down. If you are responsible for the creation of an aggressive bear, you could be fined, rightly so, thousands of dollars.

That's heartbreaking!

The same year our tent was killed we were at the unofficial Crane Flat bear viewing site, where there was a small group of us watching a bear and her cubs out in the meadow eating. We were all quietly enjoying this scene, when a family showed up with a little girl about 8 years old. She started yelling at the bear, and acting all fake tough. "I could take that bear." Her parents just laughed. The rest of us agreed that if the bear decided to charge, we were going to trip that family.

That was a younger, more nice-nice me. I'm not as nice these days. I've become more likely to start handing out pieces of my mind to complete strangers.

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robinjayp
The rangers do check cars at night. One year I noticed someone looking in my car with a flashlight in the middle of the night. I called out from my tent and it was a ranger looking for storage violations in cars (they did this many times during our visit). The ranger then went to the next campsite, woke the people up, and told them to take their visible cooler out of their car and put it in the bear box. They actually argued with the ranger and finally complied. I believe they received a ticket too. Once the ranger left, they took the cooler out of the bear box and put it back in their car. Sigh...

I saw a warning ticket on a car once - parked at the Yosemite Lodge parking lot. It was for storage of (I kid you not) cleaning fluids in the passenger compartment.

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y_p_w

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robinjayp
The rangers do check cars at night. One year I noticed someone looking in my car with a flashlight in the middle of the night. I called out from my tent and it was a ranger looking for storage violations in cars (they did this many times during our visit). The ranger then went to the next campsite, woke the people up, and told them to take their visible cooler out of their car and put it in the bear box. They actually argued with the ranger and finally complied. I believe they received a ticket too. Once the ranger left, they took the cooler out of the bear box and put it back in their car. Sigh...

I saw a warning ticket on a car once - parked at the Yosemite Lodge parking lot. It was for storage of (I kid you not) cleaning fluids in the passenger compartment.

Bears have been know to break into a car to get to a can of engine oil. It it looks like a food container, it is a food container as far as they are concerned. You basically should not store anything in site. Some folks think you can hide food in the trunk but the bears just bust through a window and tear out the back seat to get at it. There are no short cuts. Don't store food or food cantainers anywhere in a car and don't leave a lot of miscellaneous items in plain site.

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tomdisco

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y_p_w

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robinjayp
The rangers do check cars at night. One year I noticed someone looking in my car with a flashlight in the middle of the night. I called out from my tent and it was a ranger looking for storage violations in cars (they did this many times during our visit). The ranger then went to the next campsite, woke the people up, and told them to take their visible cooler out of their car and put it in the bear box. They actually argued with the ranger and finally complied. I believe they received a ticket too. Once the ranger left, they took the cooler out of the bear box and put it back in their car. Sigh...

I saw a warning ticket on a car once - parked at the Yosemite Lodge parking lot. It was for storage of (I kid you not) cleaning fluids in the passenger compartment.

Bears have been know to break into a car to get to a can of engine oil. It it looks like a food container, it is a food container as far as they are concerned. You basically should not store anything in site. Some folks think you can hide food in the trunk but the bears just bust through a window and tear out the back seat to get at it. There are no short cuts. Don't store food or food cantainers anywhere in a car and don't leave a lot of miscellaneous items in plain site.

It was some sort of scented cleaner. I could imagine some of the lavender or other scented stuff could even be interesting smelling to a bear. Maybe enough to investigate and break into a window.

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tomdisco

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y_p_w
I saw a warning ticket on a car once - parked at the Yosemite Lodge parking lot. It was for storage of (I kid you not) cleaning fluids in the passenger compartment.

Bears have been know to break into a car to get to a can of engine oil. It it looks like a food container, it is a food container as far as they are concerned. You basically should not store anything in site. Some folks think you can hide food in the trunk but the bears just bust through a window and tear out the back seat to get at it. There are no short cuts. Don't store food or food cantainers anywhere in a car and don't leave a lot of miscellaneous items in plain site.

And yet none of the Yosemite bears have figured out how to break into the outdoor vending machines at the Yosemite Lodge, including the ones that display candybars in all illuminated glory at night. Not to mention the soda machines too.

I once asked a ranger about this. He didn't know the answer to this Yosemite paradox.

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plawrence
And yet none of the Yosemite bears have figured out how to break into the outdoor vending machines at the Yosemite Lodge, including the ones that display candybars in all illuminated glory at night. Not to mention the soda machines too.

I once asked a ranger about this. He didn't know the answer to this Yosemite paradox.

Perhaps it is because vending machines are build to withstand human abuse?

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eeek

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plawrence
And yet none of the Yosemite bears have figured out how to break into the outdoor vending machines at the Yosemite Lodge, including the ones that display candybars in all illuminated glory at night. Not to mention the soda machines too.

I once asked a ranger about this. He didn't know the answer to this Yosemite paradox.

Perhaps it is because vending machines are build to withstand human abuse?

... or that they don't contain actual food.

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szalkowski

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eeek

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plawrence
And yet none of the Yosemite bears have figured out how to break into the outdoor vending machines at the Yosemite Lodge, including the ones that display candybars in all illuminated glory at night. Not to mention the soda machines too.

I once asked a ranger about this. He didn't know the answer to this Yosemite paradox.

Perhaps it is because vending machines are build to withstand human abuse?

... or that they don't contain actual food.

All it will take is a bear seeing someone getting a vac sealed goodie out of it and walking away eating it. Proximity of bear + person using machine will eventually coincide.

There are coyotes in Marin county who pester cyclists for Clif Bars.

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AlmostThere
All it will take is a bear seeing someone getting a vac sealed goodie out of it and walking away eating it. Proximity of bear + person using machine will eventually coincide.

But if Yosemite black bears have such a great sense of smell that they can sniff out food hidden in a trunk of a car, and have good enough vision and memory to recognize prepackaged and wrapped food by sight, they ought to already know that there is a lot of yummy food in them thar vending machines.

My theory is they don't attack the vending machines for possibly two reasons. First, the vending machines constantly make noise and give off heat, so maybe the bears think the vending machines are these big hulking creatures that are alive so they live them alone -- unlike cars that when the motor isn't running, don't make any noise and can get quite cold, like a dead animal.

Second, maybe the bears have tried attacking the vending machines and have a received a nice electrical shock for their efforts, so that could have discouraged the Yosemite bears from further pursuing the food and soda contained inside the vending machines.

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plawrence

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AlmostThere
All it will take is a bear seeing someone getting a vac sealed goodie out of it and walking away eating it. Proximity of bear + person using machine will eventually coincide.

But if Yosemite black bears have such a great sense of smell that they can sniff out food hidden in a trunk of a car, and have good enough vision and memory to recognize prepackaged and wrapped food by sight, they ought to already know that there is a lot of yummy food in them thar vending machines.

My theory is they don't attack the vending machines for possibly two reasons. First, the vending machines constantly make noise and give off heat, so maybe the bears think the vending machines are these big hulking creatures that are alive so they live them alone -- unlike cars that when the motor isn't running, don't make any noise and can get quite cold, like a dead animal.

Second, maybe the bears have tried attacking the vending machines and have a received a nice electrical shock for their efforts, so that could have discouraged the Yosemite bears from further pursuing the food and soda contained inside the vending machines.

X Ray vision might help them....

I doubt there is enough electricity in the front of the machine to drive away a bear - though, animals in general do not like electricity. There was actually a bear bag that was being sold with a battery pack, based on the notion that electric charges would drive away critters in general, and the current was in special wired straps around the bag. I was really interested in it and waiting to see if the setup would show up on the approved list. It never did. The last chatter about the system I could find in forums was 2007 - the website for the product has disappeared. The last page in the Wayback Machine is from 2009. All gone. So did the product fail, or did they simply run out of money to produce it? Don't know. But I bet you a bear could figure out the shock is merely surprising and get past it.

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AlmostThere

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plawrence

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AlmostThere
All it will take is a bear seeing someone getting a vac sealed goodie out of it and walking away eating it. Proximity of bear + person using machine will eventually coincide.

But if Yosemite black bears have such a great sense of smell that they can sniff out food hidden in a trunk of a car, and have good enough vision and memory to recognize prepackaged and wrapped food by sight, they ought to already know that there is a lot of yummy food in them thar vending machines.

My theory is they don't attack the vending machines for possibly two reasons. First, the vending machines constantly make noise and give off heat, so maybe the bears think the vending machines are these big hulking creatures that are alive so they live them alone -- unlike cars that when the motor isn't running, don't make any noise and can get quite cold, like a dead animal.

Second, maybe the bears have tried attacking the vending machines and have a received a nice electrical shock for their efforts, so that could have discouraged the Yosemite bears from further pursuing the food and soda contained inside the vending machines.

X Ray vision might help them....

X-ray vision isn't really needed for the candy vending machines, because all the actual candy bars are displayed through clear glass in an illuminated display for all to see, including the bears. So if a Yosemite black bear can recognize a Snickers bar inside someones car, it should definitely be able to recognize that a Snicker bar resides inside the outdoor vending machines at the Yosemite Lodge.

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AlmostThere
I doubt there is enough electricity in the front of the machine to drive away a bear - though, animals in general do not like electricity. There was actually a bear bag that was being sold with a battery pack, based on the notion that electric charges would drive away critters in general, and the current was in special wired straps around the bag. I was really interested in it and waiting to see if the setup would show up on the approved list. It never did. The last chatter about the system I could find in forums was 2007 - the website for the product has disappeared. The last page in the Wayback Machine is from 2009. All gone. So did the product fail, or did they simply run out of money to produce it? Don't know. But I bet you a bear could figure out the shock is merely surprising and get past it.

True electric fence setups have worked pretty well. The Brooks Camp campground at Katmai National Park is protected with an electric fence. I don't believe they're lethal, but the shock is enough to keep them from trying.

I live in an area with deer. The typical recommendation to keep deer out of an area is 8 ft tall fences or a 4 ft high electric fence. The deal about the electric fences is that once they try going through the gaps in the electric wires and get shocked, they give up and don't attempt to jump over the fence.

Was camping at Mono Village at Upper Twin Lake near Bridgeport. In the middle of the night I could hear a bear munching on what sounded like a styrofoam ice chest. This went on for at least an hour and a half. When I got up the next morning I looked around my neighbors' sites but couldn't see any ice chest or trash. Then I saw that a window was broken out of a small SUV. I walked up to it and saw that the bear had eaten the enitre interior of the car! He ate the dash, the headliner, the steering wheel, the seats, etc. All that was left were the wire structures of the seats and the metal part of the steering wheel! The people had left a bag of chips in the car. Get this, they still started it up and drove the car!

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mtn man
Was camping at Mono Village at Upper Twin Lake near Bridgeport. In the middle of the night I could hear a bear munching on what sounded like a styrofoam ice chest. This went on for at least an hour and a half. When I got up the next morning I looked around my neighbors' sites but couldn't see any ice chest or trash. Then I saw that a window was broken out of a small SUV. I walked up to it and saw that the bear had eaten the enitre interior of the car! He ate the dash, the headliner, the steering wheel, the seats, etc. All that was left were the wire structures of the seats and the metal part of the steering wheel! The people had left a bag of chips in the car. Get this, they still started it up and drove the car!

They will test everything. I found a flashlight with fang holes clean through it. A ranger acquaintance that lived at Lake Eleanor had a bear break-in and the bear bit through every book in the residence looking for yummies. The bear also ate two frozen chickens and everything in the cupboards.

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Old Dude

As long as they don't munch on me and put their teeths through me at night, I am ok.

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mtn man
Get this, they still started it up and drove the car!

But they just left the bear alone while he was chewing their car?

Their tent was 15 ft. from the car, they never heard a thing. They got up about 9:30 a.m. and all of a sudden I heard the wailing of a very distraught young lady. Luckily they had family camped in the same campground and I guess they helped them through it. They actually went to the campground gate and complained to the security guy and wanted them to do something about it. This campground has campers sign a warning about bears.

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rick
Are bears a real problem? What is the human thing to do when you see them? Do they sneak into your tents? Do I need to worry?

The bears are merely the diversionary force.
It's the small woodland creatures for which you really need to watch out:

Haha, if my tent ever collapses in the middle of the night, I will know who to blame.

In the fifties and sixties we used to go to the "dumps" at dusk to watch the bears munching their dinner... we'd follow that with the Fire-fall viewing. With all the trash at the dumps, they rarely bothered our tent camping. That's when we camped at "Camp 7", anywhere we pleased...no designated campsites...just squish yourselves in. Everyone hung sheets and blankets for privacy.

I never remember a bear issue back then. Later in the 1970's there were designated campsites and then I remember bears roaming about looking for goodies.

Any other ancient memories?

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lovechris
I never remember a bear issue back then. Later in the 1970's there were designated campsites and then I remember bears roaming about looking for goodies.

Probably b/c they decided maybe to remove the bear "feeding" stations. ???

btw. Old Dude (mrcondron on this forum) only remembers things from "a few years go"
so please continue to post these little nuggets! Love them!