Re: Aiming to thwart Yogi, Duarte officials resort to improved trash cans to keep out bears

Looking at the picture I'd say a Yosemite bear would only be stopped by his own laughter.

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eeek
Looking at the picture I'd say a Yosemite bear would only be stopped by his own laughter.

A lot of communities require or highly recommend using metal enclosures. A lot of them have the same locking mechanisms we see in bear boxes in Yosemite. You can use a standard can.

Still - those plastic cans are supposed to be pretty effective when secured properly. The right plastic material is actually tougher than car door frames. I mean - ABS plastics work fine with bear canisters. The cheapest bear resistant cans are the screw top ones, but I remember seeing a commercial for a competing product showing someone frustrated trying to get one open.

And Duarte is pretty much a suburban area much like the hills in the Bay Area. However - they're really close to national forest land. A relative used to work in Duarte at City of Hope Medical Center.

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y_p_w
A lot of communities require or highly recommend using metal enclosures. A lot of them have the same locking mechanisms we see in bear boxes in Yosemite. You can use a standard can.

From the photo these appear to be supplied by the trash company. They use robot arms to pick them up and dump them.

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Still - those plastic cans are supposed to be pretty effective when secured properly

Maybe they'll work in Duarte. But they wouldn't last 5 minutes in Yosemite.

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eeek

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y_p_w
A lot of communities require or highly recommend using metal enclosures. A lot of them have the same locking mechanisms we see in bear boxes in Yosemite. You can use a standard can.

From the photo these appear to be supplied by the trash company. They use robot arms to pick them up and dump them.

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Still - those plastic cans are supposed to be pretty effective when secured properly

Maybe they'll work in Duarte. But they wouldn't last 5 minutes in Yosemite.

I don't think they'd be ideal since bears would be dragging them off, and the NPS almost universally prefers either big boxes with latches or the tried and true steel can attached to a post.

Bear Saver makes a lot of the steel bear boxes and trash enclosures used by the NPS and FS. That's what seems to be used in that photo. They're supposed to come with steel reinforcements in certain areas.

http://www.bearsaver.com/ResidentialPolyCarts.htm

They've tried a lot of solution in Yosemite over the years. Many worked for a while but the bears eventually figured them out.

This plastic trash can would be opened in a few minutes by a Yosemite bear . Once a bear figures out how to pry the cover from the sides it will be history. Others watching just have to observe how the first one figured it out. A heavy bear jumping onto a can tipped on its side might even pop the latch off. I can hear them giggling already. Look, they got rid of those hard steel thingies and replaced them with this soft stuff that bends!

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tomdisco
This plastic trash can would be opened in a few minutes by a Yosemite bear . Once a bear figures out how to pry the cover from the sides it will be history. Others watching just have to observe how the first one figured it out. A heavy bear jumping onto a can tipped on its side might even pop the latch off. I can hear them giggling already. Look, they got rid of those hard steel thingies and replaced them with this soft stuff that bends!

I'm not saying that they should be tried in Yosemite, but they can be pretty effective. This grizzly is stomping up and down on it (I'm thinking they smeared peanut butter inside) and can't seem to get it to open.



I might also be wrong about the ones issued in Duarte being the ones from BearSaver. BearSaver has poly trash carts that have a noticeable steel reinforcement right at the lid. How strong that is depends on the type of steel. Car doors are relatively soft and easy to bend. Now 1/8" stamped steel reinforcements around the lid might be a bit tougher to bend than the edge of a car door.

Yosemite bears aren't that dumb.