Anecdotal info on bear canisters

Approved canister diameters and wall angles are designed to defeat grizzlies, and they do.

But a canister that is "black bear" resistant is not necessarily "griz resistant".

An early black bear prototype meets its demise from a griz –

But that's what I thought was interesting, because it appears that it is this canister:
http://www.counterassault.com/html/bearkeg.html

which *is* meant for grizzly protection.

I don't think that canisters are bear proof – resistant, maybe. Given enough time a black can figure them out, and in a couple of areas (Marcy Dam, Rae Lakes) they have. Which is why we got very little sleep on the JMT – kept getting up to drive away the bears when we heard them moving the rocks we put on the canisters. No sense in contributing to the pool of knowledge shared by the bears in Yosemite.

Kier,
Hummm…
Yep, still on the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee list.
Old model?
Or like you suggest, one very well trained bear.

I wrote a follow up to the Zoo asking their opinion. My hope is that since Warren gets to play with lots of man-made objects, they consider him to be more "in tune" with figuring out man-made objects than your average bear, and that is why he got into it so quickly. Otherwise, 3 lbs is a pretty heavy chew toy for a bear :)

Kier,
Thanks for taking the initiative.
I look forward to reading the reply.

I still haven't gotten a message back from the Zoo's bear expert, but they just recently posted this video on YouTube. Check it at about 1:45 in to see the Grizzly working his magic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2j5-PjV1o

The "large holes" aren't as concerning as I thought they were describing. However, they are large enough that I'm sure the food smell would get on you and your gear, and attract the next night's visitor to you.