Steve at the WildeBeat has the scoop. Much of the credit for the current bear canister industry hinges on the fact that a guy named Garcia had a machine shop. Oh, and the fact that a hungry bear is a clever bear.
One of the things the first bear can testers noted was that when bears first encountered the canisters they might spend an hour trying to get ’em open. Over time they’d spend less and less time with the cans, then gave up on them altogether. A consequence of this was fewer campsite encounters as bears gave up on people as reliable pantries.
Yogi would not be pleased with the evolution of picnic-basket technology.
I remember the first time I watched bears deal with canisters. This was perhaps 10 years ago at Kearsarge Lakes, just over the Sierra Crest from Onion Valley. A group has set up our first came on a trip to Whitney and were sitting around when two bears showed up.
In the pre-canister days (which I still recalled fondly at that point, not being too pleased that I was required to carry a canister here) we would have begun the war dance, yelling, pot banging, stone throwing, and general pandemonium.
However, this was quite different. The two bears wandered over past our pile of canisters… and simply kept going. It seemed that they had seen this before and had learned to not waste their time.
Dan
Someone might have already thought of this, but now that the bears are leaving the the canisters alone how about a black plastic bag that is shaped like one. You could carry your food in it and then at the campsite blow it up into the shape of a Garcia Bear Canister and sit it out on a rock it plain view.
Well, given that a bear can detect a single french fry inside a locked minivan with all the windows up, and will rip said car open and shred its innards to find that single french fry, you might want to factor in their acute sense of smell before you try this.