not to mention the danger of leaving a cooler with food in it in your car or
vanagon ..
bears have been known to just rip the crap out of car bodies and doors to
get at food in a cooler in a car or van.
they ain't dumb.  lol. it's the humans that are, the real invaders.

lotta might nice country out there yet !

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: We went to Mammoth Lakes for a few days...

> On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Roland <syncronicity1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jack,
>>
>> That is a "bear box", a big steel box, the area is active with bears.
>> Everyone has to stash all the food, or anything that smells like food
>> (pots,
>> candy, makeup) into that box overnight and whenever you leave the
>> campsite.
>> The literature we received even suggested to check your kids to make sure
>> they don't have any marshmallow leftovers stuck on the lips of your kids
>> :).   There is a sign posted that you can get a ticket if there is an
>> oversight and you accidentally feed the bears (gotta love those endless
>> Cali
>> laws / behavior engineering).
>>
>
>  What actually happens is....If you feed the bears, either by accident or
> on purpose or because you leave food they can get to...the bears 'learn'
> to
> get food from people.  Eventually there will be a complaint or the bear
> will
> maul some kid or dog or human and then the bear will be killed for that.
> So that law is because humans are pretty stupid..especially city folks who
> have no idea about bears...and they leave tempting stuff all over, causing
> lots of bears to die needlessly.    There aren't so many places left for
> bears and there aren't so many bears that we can waste them...plenty of
> dumb
> humans though.
>
>  So really, when you are camping be mindful that our semi-wild lands are
> scarce and wonderful and are worth taking care of carefully.  I don't
> begrudge these rules because they are needed, what with so much human
> population pressure.