As, it's virtually impossible to remove all food,
spices & gums, candies etc.
From our Vans every night,
And I know all food etc really should be
hanging from a tree in a bag.
Well I like to leave a little token offering out in the bushes for them, so
they won't eat me !! :o)
I usually stack my two coolers on the other side of camp, out of the Van.
I stack two large rocks on top to try to keep the raccoons out
Or at least wake me enough to shoo them away.
And to wake me enough to prepare fer bear !!!
& no, The last thing I would ever want to do is to shoot anything !!!
As a matter of fact, the most worried I've Ever Been
Is when I woke up and there were
Many New Human tracks all through Camp.
Oh well,
At least my Camping Furniture wasn't Rearranged !!!
JC...

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
David Kao
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 12:06 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Bear Attacks Camper NVC

--- On Fri, 1/23/09, neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> >...... I've always been more worried about cougars
> > than bears 'cause you might not hear them coming.
>

I have been more worried about mountain lions too. I used
to hike in a state park with 87,000 acres of hills and
forest. I am sure it is home of plenty of mountain lions.
I have stopped going there after hearing many sightings
of them on the foothills near the park.

I did expect to see some rattlers. But I have not seen one
yet. I did run into groups of cattles in the park. They
weigh like a ton each. In the spring there are usually some
new born in the group. That's when you need to stay far away
from them. Henry Coe State Park is what I am talking about.

In Yosemite there are a lot of black bears. But bear attack
on human is very rare. However, bear attacks on cars or vans
happen a lot (over a hundred a year I think). I somewhat
worry about black bear attacking my Westy more than anything
else when visiting Yosemite. For this reason I don't cook
or eat in my Westy any more. It would become a target of black
bears in Yosemite.

David