From: Jason A. Cotting (p2ranger@anvilgear.com)
Date: Tue Dec 17 2002 - 17:54:47 CST
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-philmont@troop47.com [mailto:owner-philmont@troop47.com]On
Behalf Of Allen Corzine
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 9:23 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list philmont
Subject: Re: [Philmont]: Sensible smellable issue
I don't know any thing about the Bears, except those I have met through Wood
Badge and this message isn't long enough for that topic, but what difference
does it make if the Bear is trying to get to a "smellable" to decide if it
is a "rewardable", you still have an unexpected and unwelcomed (?) encounter
when the animal rummages through your tent/camp don't you?
FIS
Allen
----------------------------------------
Yes it isn't good when a bear trashes your equipment. Our primary concern
is safety. What you have to look at is the habituation of a bear. If he
comes to a site and gets a rewardable, he immediately associates camp sites
and people as vending machines that he doesn't need money for. If he gets a
polar pure bottle and some white gas, he will consider it a bad experience
and eventually decide that camp sites are not a rewarding experience. We
want bears to believe that they are best off getting food from places they
usually get it from. Hopefully they will be scared of people and stay way
from them. Unfortunately, this will not happen in high traffic areas like
Philmont.
You can't put everything in the bear bag that smells. It's just not
practical. That is why Philmont has tried to narrow things down to things
that have a high attractive smell and things that are rewardables.
When you go to bed at night, all you should have is your bedding, tent,
flash light, and sleep clothes. Some would argue other luxury items but
these are the bare minimum (no pun intended). If everything else is in the
bear bag and the non rewardable items are in the triangle, you have nothing
to fear from a bear.
Once again, if you are concerned, stay at home. Or we could build concrete
fallout shelters at each camp where nothing can happen to you at night.
Backpacking is a risky lifestyle. You can't eliminate all risks. The
problem is more of a society thing. People are becoming lawsuit happy.
Philmont has to do what they can to not get slapped with another lawsuit.
The last one cost them $1.2 million. Don't get me started on risks, I'd go
on all night on that.
And please don't take Brad Jone's post wrong about "yelling and screaming at
crews". We like campers, we just get frustrated over common problems. I
doubt Brad has actually ever yelled and screamed at a crew before. The best
way to get crews to follow the rules is to have them respect bears. That
takes longer than the time we have with them so we must teach them to fear
bears. Unfortunately this is this case.
Jason
><>
Retired Ranger
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