Animals stealing your gear

At White river campground on Rainier a damn grey jay landed on the sandwich I was holding, and while I scoffed, took a big ol bite and flew off.

Does this count fishing?  Cause good lord at the bait I’ve lost.

Years ago, when I was working at REI in San Carlos, I vividly remember a co-worker of mine returning early from an aborted trip on the JMT. He & his girlfriend had just pulled into a campsite in Yosemite, opened their car doors, took out their packs and placed them on a picnic table, about twenty feet from where they parked. By the time they had gotten back to their car to get more stuff, a bear wobbled up to the table, grabbed one of their packs with his mouth, and “ran off”, dragging the entire pack with him. Although they were able to recover the pack not far away, it was subsequently destroyed as was most of the gear inside.

I was at Cape Disappointment State Park in Washington in the winter

A group of Raccoons tried to get my food from one direction and I chased them off.  But while I was distracted another Raccoon was getting into my car’s open door.  I chased it off but it wasn’t afraid of me.  I had to actually touch it with a stick to get it to leave.  I left car doors closed after that.

Unloading the pickup at Whitney Portal. Turned around from the tent and see a small black bear reaching into to cab. Swatted him with a pole and it took off. Package of tortillas on the front seat.

Raccoons have no fear.

10 years ago I was camping at a beach “state park” in Costa Rica. You had to park in a lot, then carry your stuff 100 yards to the campsites. The ranger warned me about protecting my food and gear from the coatimundis (cheeky raccoon-like pests). I left my food in the truck, and I went back to get it just before having dinner. So the food pack was on the picnic table (and I was right there with it, machete at the ready). I saw a pretty, colorful bird swoop through the campsite, then land on a nearby tree branch. I walked over to where it was, maybe 20 feet away. The bird was cool, and so was a beautiful sunset. So I was gone from my food for maybe one minute, and when I went back I saw that a pack of coaties had swiped my pack, tore it open and had devoured everything that wasn’t in a can – very quietly. I went into a rage, and chased them while wildly swinging my machete (to no real effect). My dinner was a can of sardines and a beer, which is about all I could salvage.

On a backpacking trip in the Sawtooth Wilderness (Washington) I came back to camp after filtering water at the nearby creek and saw a big marmot dragging my pack away. He had a shoulder strap in his mouth and was headed toward the rocks. I was faster. Thankfully there was no damage to the pack. Dyneema is tough stuff.

“Anyone ever had an animal steal anything?”

My heart… :-)

Two experiences come to mind.  Both are from the Pasaytyen Wilderness in Washington State.

(1) A marmot grabbed my brother’s shoe from under our tent vestibule while we were in the tent.  My brother yelled “WOLVERINE!!!!”, the marmot dropped the shoe and ran off.  Still makes me laugh.  In defense of my brother’s misidentification of the offending animal I will say that while sitting down a marmot less than a foot away looks big.

(2) What I believe to be a ground squirrel took my wife’s glasses case from outside our tent while we were in camp near the tent.  We found it near one of its holes.  There were many of these squirrel animals and a lot of holes and most of the holes had items near them.

On the Mount Whitney Trail, a marmot tried to make off with a 1-pound package of cookies, dragging it away.  But I had an ice axe.

In a open-ended treehouse in Zihuatanejo, they warned us that the coatimundi comes through every night.  Anything we didn’t place in the oven overnight was eaten in place or hauled away.

Two days ago, our dog started moving the Christmas presents from under the tree to her snowy, outside yard.

We were raided by wild pigs while lying down in a patrol base in Hohenfels Germany.  We were playing OPFOR (the bad guys) and had some National Guard folks from Tennessee augmenting us.

The mission wasn’t going to kick off until the next morning but we were always expected to follow noise and light discipline.  Middle of the night I woke to hysterics.  I sat up trying to figure out why a couple soldiers were losing their cool and saw very large pigs ripping our collective gear a new one and heard their grunting all around me.

So I climbed a tree.

Short version is that they ripped our rucks apart.  What really sucks is when they rip open an MRE peanut butter as that gets all over the rest of your gear.  We had some booby-traps in our rucks that are vacuum sealed in a foil/mylar package until they are ready to deploy.  They must have looked like pop tarts to the pigs because the next morning we found some of them in the woods half opened.

My roommate got rolled around by a sow in a separate incident but there weren’t any serious injuries from the pigs while I was in country.

Well this is embarrassing. It was drizzling/raining and I was in the open trying to get a small fire going. There was a food wire nearby (yeah it was a while ago) and my food bag was right next to me–a foot away–ready to hang. I was trying to get the fire going and then cook. While attending the fire, my food bag disappeared. Whaa???? It was early evening and when I flashed my headlamp around, the shining eyes of a bear cub were reflected back. I charged but then realized, where there’s a cub…

This was the first day/night of a trip and the last of the bad weather; it was going to be beautiful. Everyone was hiking out to get out of the storm. I had the joint to myself. Until…

In Georgia years ago. Had our packs hung on trees. Sitting by the fire turned around to see a raccoon on my buddies pack using his paw to unzip the zipper. He got a can of pringles.

A hotel monkey snatched the family’s disposable camera and dropped it when he set off the flash (memory failing, he may have taken a blurry photo.) His buddy put a cigarette in his mouth like a human. I so wish I could retake those trips in adulthood….

Not the only time I’ve had a critter steal something, but maybe the cutest:

Many years ago I had extended bad weather on a trip in the Alaska Range; repeated heavy snowfalls (in August) and I was traveling without a tent. So I holed up in a little cave under an outcrop; which, as it happened, was home to several industrious pikas. They were preparing for winter, and had considerable hay piles stashed in crevices here and there. Over the course of a couple of days we became well acquainted; they would peer at me from the far recesses of the cave, and as they grew more confident would scamper boldy by, inches away, as they went about their pika business. Which, in the fall, consists of collecting vegetation. Squirrels collect nuts and cones (and mushrooms!); pikas collect plants. Lots of them.

One evening I had a cup of chamomile tea, and following my normal practice I squeezed it somewhat dry and laid it on a rock, intending to put it in my trash bag the following morning. Morning arrived and at some point (after coffee) I realized that my teabag was missing. I was mystified, and at first blamed myself, since of course the possibilty of Teabag Theft was not the first thing to cross my mind.

The mystery was still unsolved a few hours later as I was packing up to leave, when I suddenly noticed my teabag, sitting atop a haypile in a crevice at the back of the cave, too far for me to reach even had I wanted to retrieve it.

I’ve often wondered if that teabag made a pleasant snack for a small pika at some point during the ensuing long, cold winter; a welcome diverson from the tedium of it’s normal diet.

A different pika; twenty-odd years later and fifty miles away:

Doug, best response ever! 😊

I had a mystery animal use my bowl and pot as their toilet  that I had left overnight just outside our tent.  It left its poo right in the bowl and I’m not really sure what that white stuff is.  This happened in the middle of the night and we noticed it in the morning after we spent a night camped at Ruby Lake down the Lime Mesa Trail in the San Juans of Colorado.  Skip to 8.39-8.40 to see the picture.  Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what was the likely culprit of this disgusting act of thievery ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy0YfQ5JQ14

Typically, the white stuff at the end of a scat is dried urea. A lot of birds combine their offerings that way. Small animals? Not sure, but possibly.

Merry Xmas

It was mid-May in 2010 when I happened upon an unkindness of ravens tearing into a blue tarp on the back of a pickup truck which was parked on the south side of the Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone Park. Their precision attack looked well planned as the ripped they tarp to pieces, divides the spoils and flew off down the Fire Hole River with the spoils of conquest: bags of chips, packages of meats, loaves of Wonder Bread, large sections of blue tarp and small bags with contents unknown.I have also witnessed ravens attacking bears to gain freshly killed meat for themselves and their wolf minions. No wonder there are so many raven legends in so many cultures. Ravens rule, the rest of us NEED to stay out of the way.

If that was raven poop in your pot, you were lucky to escape with your life!

Ravens are entertaining. Was car camping, people across from us left their site with stuff everywhere. Ravens made quick work destroying everything. The people come back, get mad and stuff trash bags full of stuff. Then not learning anything they leave. The ravens come back to investigate these new shiny bags of trash.

The people packed up their remains and left.

Quoth the car campers: “nevermore!”

Ravens are very smart.  There was a documentary on PBS.

A university researcher put on an ape mask and tormented some ravens.  Pulled on their wings and stuff.  No damage but the ravens didn’t like it.

Then, when the researcher put on the ape mask and walked around the ravens made a huge ruckess, recognizing the man wearing ape mask but they didn’t do it for humans not wearing the mask.

Then, after those ravens had lived out their life, the researcher repeated walking around wearing the ape mask and the ravens again made a ruckess.

So, the ravens had communicated to their offspring not to trust humans wearing an ape mask.  They told their kids “by the way, if you ever see a human wearing a mask, don’t let them catch you or they’ll pull on your wings and stuff” or something to that effect.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/birds-remember-faces.html

So, the ravens had communicated to their offspring not to trust humans wearing an ape mask.

And now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I should do the same.

Costa Rica, on the beach. We were neurotically careful with watching our stuff, having heard stories about thieves on the beach. But we watched as monkeys came down the trees, onto the beach and grabbed a neighboring swimmer’s camera and headed back up the trees! I think they got some other things too.

Gray jays routinely rob campsites here in Alaska. One landed on a two burner Coleman I was cooking breakfast on, on the propped back lid, and snatched part of a pancake off the pan before escaping! I think it had Alaskan blueberries in it.

Years ago, before bear barrels were required on the Savage River in Denali, I was in the tent early in the morning with a friend. Something woke me up, and I crawled out of the tent. I walked toward the rocks where we had cached our food in a large trash bag, and saw a bear cub sniffing at the bag! I shouted for my friend, who came running, and then let me know that I ought to put my contacts in before identifying wildlife. The shame – it was only a marmot. But at least we fended off the theft. I made my friend promise not to tell anyone my dumb mistake, but now I’m too old to care.

A skunk stole my Mac n cheese in the Smokies. I had just mixed in the powder and decided I wanted to mix up some Gatorade to drink. Turned back around from the food bag and it was coming at my food full speed. I yelled and waved my arms. Skunk turned it’s tail towards me and stomped the ground with it’s front paws. I backed up a step, skunk moved closer to the Mac n cheese. I threw a stick at it and yelled some more. It run around my pot, which I had set on the ground, and aimed at me again. I backed up a couple of steps. Skunk grabbed the top of the pot, turned it over and started eating. All I could do was watch. Saddest part was I had to wash dishes for him and didn’t get to eat any of it.