Bear canisters are silly–at least I think so

[Yoyo]

“the Bearikade scout weighs about a pound, carries up to six days of food, and isn’t that large–it packs well. Is that just unacceptable?”  Uh, yes.  :)  My silnylon stuff sack weighs 1 oz.  I’ve spent hundreds of dollars to save 3-4 oz.  In this case, I save hundreds of dollars AND 15 oz.  Stuff sack costs around $10.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

David, why don’t you just eat off the land.  That way you don’t need to worry about food storage and it will lighten your load dramatically as you carry no consumables.

[Yoyo]

Just saw this update on the Ursack website:

“A total of 85 approved bear canisters were either broken or stolen by Yosemite black bears between July 15, 2012 and July 11, 2017. During that same period, 2 Ursacks failed (1 incident was mistakenly reported twice). All of the Ursacks were older models—not IGBC approved.

This information was gleaned from a comprehensive spreadsheet of wilderness bear incidents provided to us by Yosemite. Some of the information in the report is difficult to precisely analyze because the narratives crammed into the spreadsheet are truncated. But as best we can determine, 30 approved canisters were broken enough that a bear got a food reward. Another 55 were rolled or batted away from camp and were never recovered. Many others were rolled away from camp but were eventually found.”

This information suggests that the Ursack is nearly as effective as a bear cannister.  Obviously, this information is not published by a third party, but I’m curious about this.  Is there any hope of the Ursack being approved in the near future for problem areas, such as along the JMT?

[Tony Wong]

@David,

Well, what this gets down to your your philosophical view of rule of law vs. personal freedoms.

In a very strict authoritarian view, you can either follow the laws or chose to not follow them, understanding the risk that YOU are taking and the possible consequences for YOU and those around you.

I doubt that there is going to be an argument or reason that will sufficiently satisfy you in this particular discussion about the bear canister.

Even if you could find the study/data that would support the argument that bear canisters are not necessary, the fact is that the rules/law states that you MUST carry a bear canister in certain parts of the country.

While it is useful to discuss lighter and alternative methods for the future, in as so far as a better/lighter product could be submitted for review to the government for possible acceptance for use in place of the bear canisters currently approved for use, it won’t help you with your current dilemma.

If we are talking about productive discussion, could you see the possibility of your being given an acceptable reason that would compel you to carry a bear canister?

If the answer is YES, then constructive discussion is possible….if the answer is always NO for you, then we are left with a closed minded discussion that is better left to the Chaff Section.

If it is any small comfort to you, even if you are forced to carry a bear canister, you will likely be one of the lightest people on the trail….so all of your hard work and expense in lowering your base weight will not be in vain….small comfort, but in following the law/rules…..all things relative, you are going to be lighter than many other backpackers on the trail who are carrying bear canisters.

Tony

[Ken Thompson]

For Ursack owners there is hope. Sadly hope is old enough now to date.

[Tony Wong]

@ David re: Ursack

Don’t have a direct answer, but the frustrating history with the Ursack is that the ability to have their products reviewed and approved is a painfully glacial process for getting approval.

Sure many people here would be thrilled if the UrSack were approved.

I will mention that a friend of mine took the UrSack out on a section of the JMT/Thousand Island Lakes and had a bear attack the Ursack.

The Ursack survived, with some holes from the bear’s teeth….the bag survived but the food was crushed and spoiled with bear slobber. (Note: I don’t believe that he had the optional metal sheet that was sold with later Ursacks….his was the old green fabric version)

He has vowed never to take it out on the trail again and has a Bearikade now.

Tony

[Matthew / BPL]

David, I hope that you choose to stay out of areas where bear cans are required and if you enter those areas without a can I hope you get fined heavily and escorted out of the wilderness.

Frankly, I’m shocked that you won’t carry the extra couple of pounds in areas where it is required. It’s such a minuscule inconvenience and you make such a big deal out of it.

[Matthew / BPL]

One more thing: my 12 year old carried a BV500 for 220 miles on the JMT and he never complained about it once. It’s really not that big of a deal.

[R]

Re. Lighter 1 – wow, that is some slimy marketing.  1lb 12oz minimum functional weight.

Re. a bear zapping bag – interesting idea.

I think it’d have to match the fence’s voltage.  My guess is if a bear gets zapped on the nose, it’ll go to work w/ its paws, and I’m sure those take some high voltage to hurt.  If the current is in fact provided by a capacitor, then you could use cells much smaller than two D cells.

Fences work via a ground connection – you have to sink a large stake in the dirt.  For a small food sack – the ground connection risks being severed by the bear batting the food around; it also may not work in loose/dry soil.  If you go the route of the bug paddle, where the connection is bridged between adjacent wires, then rain has the potential to short the circuit and defeat the defense.

Caveat – I’ve never seen a bear interact w/ a fence.  Maybe the first zap would be enough to deter hitting it hard enough to sever the ground connection.

 

 

[Ken Thompson]

Fence is heavier than a single canister

http://www.udap.com/mm5/product/BEF

[Anonymous]

I may be missing something, but I’ve wondered how that thinnish aluminum liner without some inherent stronger inner structure could keep food from getting crushed?  You’d be better off with a foam liner with a thinner Al liner above it–at least that gives a little cushion and at less weight, though more volume would be taken up.

[BlackHatGuy]

“Focusing on just (electrifying) a bag could significantly reduce the size.”

Was done quite some time ago by Wilderness Solutions. Was reintroduced by Ruta Locura a bit later. No idea if it’s still available there.

[Paul S]

the post about how many bear canister failed at Yosemite does not seem to take into account how many canisters there were compared to how many Ursacks. i.e., the numbers weren’t normalized to “per method” results.

 

[J R]

Fences and electrified bags won’t work because it has to be something that the bear can learn to recognize as “one of those things that might smell good but I can’t ever get any food out of.” If an electrified bag does not look distinct (to a bear’s eye) from other bags and stuff sacks then the bear will only learn that sometimes it can get food from one of those things and sometimes it can’t, so it will try every time.

Bear canisters work not only because they are pretty much impenetrable but also because a bear can learn to recognize it and it doesn’t look like anything else. After enough frustrating experiences with a bear canister, upon seeing yet another one a bear basically thinks, “Oh, one of those things? Forget it.”

Paul, I agree with you about Yosemite numbers. It’s surprising that there were any ursak failures at all reported in Yosemite considering that they are illegal there — so not only are there very few people using them, if they do have a failure they are highly motivated to not report it. Beyond that, the number of canister failures seems very high and does not align with other bear statistics in Yosemite.

[Jacob]

“30 approved canisters were broken enough that a bear got a food reward” (avg 6 per year the past 5 years) and at least twice that number were messed with. 1 in 3 odds of success doesn’t sound like deterrence to me but what do I know?

“the numbers weren’t normalized to “per method” results” I think these data come from voluntary response, and ursacks aren’t allowed in Yosemite? So I imagine the ursack numbers are way off anyway.

Apparently the Sierra Agency Black Bear Group used to control standardized bear can testing, but they don’t anymore and there isn’t currently any standardized testing?  Does anyone know more about this?

I trust the people who run the NPS and NFS, everyone I’ve interacted with personally has been very knowledgeable and nice. Moreover, with this number of bear canister failures I would assume more people online would be complaining they don’t work. No complaints=>no bear can failures=>data that says to use bear cans. If there are in fact a large number of bear canister failures then that data glorifying them may not actually exist.

Should there be more discussion about how well bear canisters work/ how to avoid failures? How many bear canister failures until then? Since they have a financial stake in renting bear canisters at visitor centers, I don’t imagine they will publish any data they have on their efficacy, but maybe a freedom of information act request could shed more light.

(P.S. I wonder if anyone who had food in a canister and eaten by a bear had rented the can?)

[jscott]

I once saw a group of people crashed out in their tent with an open bear can out front while a marmot raided their giant bag of M and M’s.

So: how much of the bear can ‘failure’ is simple user error? I doubt that people recognize, or will admit, they didn’t understand that you had to close the canister, for example, even during the day. Or that you had to close all three locks.

[Anonymous]

JR wrote, “Fences and electrified bags won’t work because it has to be something that the bear can learn to recognize as “one of those things that might smell good but I can’t ever get any food out of.” If an electrified bag does not look distinct (to a bear’s eye) from other bags and stuff sacks then the bear will only learn that sometimes it can get food from one of those things and sometimes it can’t, so it will try every time.”

Not necessarily the case.  A bear’s strongest sense by far, is their very acute sense of smell. I would imagine that to a bear, bare copper wire would have a distinct and strongish smell when within close range.

Copper is not a common material in backpacking, except occasionally found in some stove equipment.

After being zapped by a few electrified bags with copper wire, the bear would start to associate the smell of copper with the unpleasant experience most likely.

Things might get tricky if different companies use different metals, but as I’ve mentioned before on here, copper is good to use anyways, as a number of critters really just don’t like putting it in their mouth for some reason. I see no reason why bears would be different. It’s an added level of protection.

[David Thomas]

An electrified food bag doesn’t have to be grounded.  I’m insulated from my bugger-zapping tennis racket and, further, can be insulated from the ground by my shoes.  And yet it zaps bugs.  If a grid of positive and negative wires are charged by the device, it will hurt when touched.

Whenever I’ve trained a dog with an electric wire to not, say, jump up on the wooden fence or jump over the fence to the garden, they got zapped about twice and never tried it again.  I was always left thinking I’d rather rent one instead of buying it because two days later, I was done with it.  I doubt a bear would continue to play with a canister/bag that zapped them 2 or 3 times.  And if they’d encountered such a bag before and it had any characteristic smell or shape, yeah, they’d leave it alone.

[J R]

FYI, copper doesn’t have a smell, it is a highly inert element and does not release atoms from its surface that could reach your nose. Copper is reactive to biological material, which is why it can disinfect itself. The “copper smell” is the products of the reaction of skin oils, bacteria, etc. with the metal surface.

So if you have an electrified copper bear fence, for the smell to be recognizable to bears you would have to run your hands (or other body parts) all over the copper pretty much every night after setup.

[Bob Moulder]

“the numbers weren’t normalized to “per method” results” I think these data come from voluntary response, and ursacks aren’t allowed in Yosemite? So I imagine the ursack numbers are way off anyway.

The is the stuff of Mark Twain’s 3 kinds of lies: Lies, Damned lies, and Statistics.

Ridiculous to even mention these totally bogus numbers in this context.

 

[George F]

I like the idea of a “shock bag” as it would have negative reinforcement and not just frustration and failure for the bear. But I wonder how tough the bag would have to be. It seems like a certain amount of mauling could still be expected, batting around with the paws after being shocked perhaps. For those with more bear experience, what do you think? Would the end result have to be as tough as an Ursack anyways?

[Yoyo]

@Tony

Could I see the possibility of being given an acceptable reason that would compel me to carry a bear cannister?  Yes.  I fear that many here misunderstood the spirit of my thread, namely to bemoan the current state of things, i.e., that an UL backpacker has no other recourse than to hoist a 2-3 lb piece of incompressible, poorly packable plastic on his/her back.  The silliness I alluded to at the outset refers to the incongruity with such a load and the rest of one’s kit, which in some cases may be a frameless 35L pack weighing a small fraction of that ungainly burden.  Does that mean that cannisters are to be denigrated or those who choose carry them?  No.  I apologize if people mistook my original post.  We all make personal gear choices by assessing levels of risk–what we are willing to tolerate.  Now that said, those who read my posts carefully will note that I am not claiming that bear cannisters are ineffective, nor that they should be eschewed in all circumstances.  I am merely seeking to explore alternatives–i.e., they may not be as necessary as some think depending on the situation.  (Again, I look to empirical evidence to settle the issue).  Those who read carefully will also note that I am not advocating widespread contravention of local laws–as I stated I have never hiked in the Sierra (would love to though one day). The conversation is one about the merits of alternative methodologies (proper PCT hangs, Ursacks, etc.) in regions where bear cannisters are mandated.  Given that these mandates are on the rise, it is a fair question, in my opinion, to open these sorts of conversations.

Re. the Ursack, that is interesting anecdotal evidence you present regarding the Ursack failure.  I heard a similar story this summer while on the Colorado Trail about someone’s Ursack being compromised.  I do know that Ursack claims to have improved their product with the all-white version, and now they have come out with the Almighty(sp?) which is supposed to be resistant to bear teeth punctures and has been submitted for review.  The problem, as others have noted, is that the agencies in power are excrutiatingly slow in evaluating these products.  This leads me to question the wisdom of said agencies.  Thus the search for more empirical data.  As I mentioned, what is needed are more controlled studies. The data on Ursack’s website is obviously missing quite a bit of context, as it doesn’t discuss the ratio of failure to overall use for cannisters vs. Ursacks.  I do know that Ursacks have been tested in IGBC(sp?) tests and survived.  Why they haven’t been approved for widespread Sierra use is unbeknownst to me.

I’m interested in continuing the conversation, but only if people are level-headed and willing to engage in a rational discussion/debate.  I will say that it has been mildly amusing to watch otherwise level-headed people to react so vehemently on behalf of bear cannisters and stoop to ad hominem attacks as if that settles the debate.

[d k]

David, I think the reason that people reacted so vehemently is that your posts seemed to reflect no concern for the well being of the bears, or the risks to them, but merely your unhappiness with the concept of having to carry something that violated your personal creed of UL.  The message was read, even if not meant by you, that you cared more about saving those pounds than about the welfare of the bears.

 

[Yoyo]

@dk

I”m sorry if people mistook my post to indicate a total disregard for bears. Did I explicitly state that somewhere along the way?  I’m sorry if I did, but I don’t believe so.  This is where level-headedness and careful reading pay off.  I do think people have to distinguish a willingness to tolerate a certain level of risk from a total lack of concern.  I am willing to tolerate a level of risk with my own life by going UL (carrying minimal medical supplies, shelter, etc.), does that mean that I lack concern for my own well-being?  That argument seems fallacious to me.  I think that the point of disagreement arises from the unwillingness of others to acknowledge that risk-taking is part of everyday life.  I am merely seeking for an alternative solution that places my well being, the well being of others, and the well being of wildlife within reasonable levels of risk. That, to me, is within the spirit of the UL philosophy.

[George F]

David, if you wanted a level headed discussion you choice of words in the opening post was not helpful. Silly, ridiculous, spiritual burden, foolishness, prove my worth. It is no wonder people replied strongly.

[Author]

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