Re: 16th Apple Picking Event to Occur in Yosemite National Park

All visitors, employees, and residents are invited to pick apples (and take them home) to help keep bears wild on Wednesday, July 30th, 2014 at Curry Village Apple Orchard from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

These ripe apples attract bears to developed areas and alter their natural diets. By removing the apples, bears will return to natural food sources found throughout the park and not become exposed to humans and their food. Parking will not be allowed in the Curry Village Orchard Lot from Wednesday, July 30th from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Park Invites News Media to Cover July 30th Event

What:
Yosemite National Park will hold the 16th annual Apple Picking Event on July 30th, in Yosemite Valley. A tactic to reduce bear incidents is to remove non-native food sources from Yosemite Valley. There are two historic apple orchards in Yosemite Valley (in the Curry Village parking area and near the stables) that produce apples which attract bears to highly concentrated visitor use areas. For the 16th consecutive year, the park will conduct an Apple Picking Event, in which park visitors and volunteers are asked to help collect apples from the trees in the Curry Village orchard. Park staff will be onsite to provide help in picking apples and provide public education and awareness.

As a result of Yosemite’s Bear Management Program, black bear – human incidents in Yosemite National Park have been reduced approximately 90 percent since 1998 (an incident is defined as an interaction between a bear and a person or property). Additionally, property damage has been reduced by approximately 87 percent. These significant reductions are attributed to an intensive public outreach and education campaign stressing proper food storage that the park has undertaken since 1998 (this had been the biggest year to date for bear incidents/property damage). Further, park visitors have done an excellent job with proper food storage, thus severely reducing the availably of human food for bears.

These types of programs and management actions have helped to dramatically reduce the impacts of negative human and wildlife interactions. The success of these programs have also helped to reduce property damage by bears, with Yosemite Valley recording zero vehicle break-ins by bears in 2013.

When:
Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Where:
Curry Village Apple Orchard from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
(Media parking available onsite)

Who:
Yosemite National Park Rangers, Wildlife Biologist, and park volunteers

Photo Ops/Interviews
Park Rangers and Wildlife Biologists providing interviews on bear management techniques and why incidents have been decreasing for several years.
Park visitors and volunteers picking apples in the Curry Village orchard.
Park Rangers conducting outreach to park visitors about bear management.
Spectacular scenery of Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite: Pick some apples, keep the bears away
By Mary Forgione
July 16, 2014

How can picking apples in Yosemite National Park help manage the park's bear population? Removing the fruit keeps critters away from the more populated areas of the park, including Yosemite Valley, and keeps their diet wild, park officials say.

And though visitors may want to take a snapshot (not a selfie!) of a bear, it's best they aren't as visible. More on that later.

The park is holding an apple-picking day July 30 for visitors and volunteers who come to two historic orchards, one in the Curry Village parking area and a second near the horse stables. Both are in the tourist-centric Yosemite Valley.

The trees likely were planted by James Lamon, who arrived in 1859 and is thought to be the first settler in the valley. He built a cabin and planted the fruit trees near the present-day stable.

In 1941, Ansel Adams made the apple trees famous in a snowy photo he shot with Half Dome in the background.


http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trb-yosemite-apples-bears-20140715-story.html

I'm a bit surprised to hear there will even be an apple picking this year, since they cancelled it last year:

2013 apple picking cancelled

I had assumed the drought was to blame for the small apple crop last year, and it would be the same again this year as a result?
But what do I know about apple crops? (answer: next to nothing!).

The ground water level of Yosemite Valley should be high enough that Valley's apple trees shouldn't be affected by the dry year.

What often affects that amounts of fruit that fruit trees including apple trees produce is the weather during the time the trees are blossoming.

If the weather is very wet and/or windy, the blossom can be blown off the trees before the bees (and other insects) had time to pollenate them, hence less fruit come summer.

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