Wanna see a bear? Odds are good that if you hang out in one of Yosemite National Park's parking lots -- particularly the one near legendary Camp 4 -- you'll see one before too long. Just hope you don't spot a bruin breaking into your car.
So far this year Yosemite's black bears have wracked up more than $36,000 in property damage, much of that coming when they broke into vehicles in pursuit of something tasty. According to park officials, during the week of August 9-15 there were 11 bear incidents in parking lots, which brought the year-to-date total to 50. While there were no reported incidents in campgrounds the most recent tracking period, for the year there have been 137 bear incidents in campgrounds, according to the park's stats, and 131 in "other areas."
Overall, there have 332 bear incidents in Yosemite this year, which is up just 4 percent from last year, and down 68 percent from 1998's trend.
While the majority of the bear-auto incidents from August 9-15 were reported from Camp 4, a favored hangout of the climbing crowd, bears also broke into vehicles near El Capitan, Yosemite Valley trailhead parking, and Yosemite Lodge, the park reported. "Do not leave food, drinks, or any scented items in your vehicle after dark!," it added.
Bears also have been continuously active in White Wolf and Tuolumne Meadows areas over the past month. El Portal is also seeing an increase in bear activity. Multiple bears have been observed at Glacier Point recently and have obtained food from people who left food unattended.
So far this year 18 bears have been hit by cars this year, compared to 17 through this period a year ago.
Comments
Please be responsible with your food and trash. It's not always convenient but bears lives and the safety of campers is not to be taken lightly.
A good reminder of what happens when people don't follow common sense - and regulations - concerning proper storage of food in "bear country." Anyone planning a visit to Yosemite needs to be aware of the park's regulations on food storage, which have in fact resulted in some pretty impressive progress on this problem.
According to a 2008 study published in the journal Human–Wildlife Conflicts,
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Those numbers prompted some major changes in the park's approach, and make this year's stats look pretty good by comparison. That's probably not much consolation to those whose vehicles were damaged this year, but the responsibility for helping solve this problem still lies with every visitor to the park.
I've made a few food storage mistakes in my day in Yosemite. Fortunately nothing bad has happened to me yet, but I still try my best to avoid those mistakes. I remember once seeing a car parked overnight at Yosemite Lodge with a warning ticket that there were "cleaning supplies" stored in the passenger compartment that **might** attract a bear.
There probably are a huge host of reasons why Yosemite bears break into cars. A strong smell of food may be the first reason. I've said before - if there's 20 lbs of BBQ ribs in a cooler stored in the trunk - that bound to say "jackpot" to a bear. Maybe a sealed energy bar doesn't present as strong a smell to a bear, but then again the NPS doesn't want the bear to get a "reward" for the effort if there's a random breakin. I doubt there's a single car parked in Yosemite that doesn't have some sort of faint smell of food or toiletries (remember that some bears have been seen eating soap thinking it was food). I've been told that leaving bottled water inside the passenger compartment wasn't OK since it's a visual cue to a bear, but in the trunk was OK since it didn't smell like food. I remember talking to a lodge employee in the Sierra where there were bears breaking into cars, and she said that you have to do what you can, but in the end bears aren't going to put in the effort just because of a faint smell of something food-like which all cars have.
If anything, bears are creatures of habit. Once a bear scores food at a certain campground, it's probably going to come back. The stories I've heard of are "specialist" bears that form their own niche. There was "Snaggletooth" which was named for its teeth after developing a skill at biting through canned foods. At least until it tried doing that with a can of pressurized whip cream and the resulting embedded shrapnel it its mouth. Or "Camaro Bear" - one particular bear that found a good stash in a Camaro and proceeded to break into about 20 more of them over the course of that summer.
I found it far different in Mr Rainier. The rangers told me that it was acceptable to store food in plain sight in the passenger compartment. Apparently the bears aren't big on raiding campgrounds and haven't been known to break into cars.
In 1993, while backpacking and camping above Vogelsang Lake in the Yosemite backcountry, a bear had its way with the contents of our food cache, which we made sure to tie up high above ground, beyond reach of anything on two or four legs. We had no trouble with this technique at any of our other backcountry campsites, including several at lower elevations where bears were abundant.
Evidently this bear at Vogelsang learned to untie knots. We searched for our food the next morning, only to find the remains of our plastic garbage bag several hundred feet away from our campsite, with all contents neatly opened and consumed, including several days worth of freeze-dried breakfasts, lunches and dinners, along with a few packets of expensive gormet beef jerkey and powdered tang. We restocked at the Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. The storekeepers at Vogelsang were very willing and able to help us out. We never saw the bear again.
Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
We were wondering if there have been more bear incidents in Yosemite. We visit nearly every year, and in 15+ years, have never come face to face with a bear. This past July 4th, we encountered 5 bears, 3 raiding a picnic area one evening. The 4% increase mentioned in this article doesn't seem to indicate a significant increase, but our personal experience would certainly lead one to think bear activity was way up.