Bear Resistant Storage Bins?

**Notchtop** · 07-24-2017, 07:12 AM

Originally Posted by old goat

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Anywhere bears have been active around people for a while they have figured out that if they bite through a rope tied to a tree frequently food will fall from the sky. The counter balance method doesn't work either--the sow will send a cub up a tree and have it dive bomb the branch the food is hung on--that's if the branch isn't strong enough for the cub to walk out on.

Isn't that a regional thing? I've heard the blacks in the sierra have long known this trick, and that the RMNP bears are figuring it out. I can't speak for every square mile of my region, but seems like jellystone bears aren't hip to that yet. At all. I even got a thistle sack tied bear bag style to my barn for the pine siskins. Bad Larry puts his muddy paws on the barn near the rope a couple times a spring, never has grokked it.

Edit to remark: a couple times a year we get a black stuck in an unlocked car they opened, entered, locked, then either set off the alarm and/or air bag. Hilarity ensues, generally with a lot of randomly ejected scat and claw marks before they can break back out of the car.

**old goat** · 07-24-2017, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by Notchtop

Isn't that a regional thing? I've heard the blacks in the sierra have long known this trick, and that the RMNP bears are figuring it out. I can't speak for every square mile of my region, but seems like jellystone bears aren't hip to that yet. At all. I even got a thistle sack tied bear bag style to my barn for the pine siskins. Bad Larry puts his muddy paws on the barn near the rope a couple times a spring, never has grokked it.

Edit to remark: a couple times a year we get a black stuck in an unlocked car they opened, entered, locked, then either set off the alarm and/or air bag. Hilarity ensues, generally with a lot of randomly ejected scat and claw marks before they can break back out of the car.

Like the old joke about outrunning a grizzly bear--your food protection doesn't have to be bear proof, only better than the next guys. Best protection is probably food locked in a car or truck in a campground full of people leaving their food out on picnic tables. As anti-bear tactics escalate so do bear tactics.
How smart the bears are in a given location probably depends on how the local gendarmery deals with problem bears. In CA bears that feed off of people get to hang around and perfect their craft. In other places they don't live long enough.

Went to dinner the other night at friends' house near Lake Tahoe--pretty dense well populated neighborhood. Our host spent all evening chasing off the bear that kept coming back for his bird feeder. Stubborn bear, stubborn friend--for not getting rid of the bear feeder. His 2 labs are so used to the bears they didn't bother barking.

**teledad** · 07-26-2017, 10:56 AM

How about one (or a few) of these:

http://www.bearicuda.com/food-contai...containers.php

**ClayCole** · 07-28-2017, 07:15 PM

I grew up in Tahoe, black bear country, and I recently went on a road trip with a similar cooler and bin setup to you.

My girlfriend and I would put the food under the truck in non-bear country, in the cab in non-habitualized bear country (ie, the bears aren't breaking into cars yet) or in the supplied bear box at established camp sites.

For your problem, I recommend a regular inexpensive cooler (more study than a bin, even though you don't need the insulation) with a ratchet straps around it to make it bear resistant.

My buddy had his food cooler rigged this way when a bear came into our camp on the Rubicon trail. The bear rolled the cooler around camp for a few minutes until we woke up and shouted at it and chased it off. Obviously this doesn't work for grizzlies.

**yeahman** · 07-28-2017, 08:23 PM

Maybe a portable electric shock fence like they make people take on Smith River floats in Montana now? Run the fence around the truck and don't forget it's there if you get up to pee.

**HansJob** · 07-28-2017, 09:22 PM

^^^ this and a pee bottle.

**DougW** · 07-29-2017, 03:19 PM

or pee on your grounding rod for a better ground

**gregorys** · 07-29-2017, 06:52 PM

20-30" long 6-8" diameter PVC pipe with threaded caps.
Too large to fit in their mouth, and not solid enough to bat around and break open. [That's the principle around backpacking containers too.]

But it's probably not going to be very/super cheap, and it's going to be somewhat awkward to pack your stuff in. And I'd guess it won't stop smells much at all. So, while you might not have the bears making off with your stuff, you'll perhaps have a lot of encounters. [Provided there are bears around that might come calling.]

I'm not sure any solution is very great. Frankly the electric fence seems as good or better than most.