Warm summer August days: perfect for swimming, gathering berries, or just lying around. Eat something, sleep a while, eat some more. This may be your summer schedule too, but we are actually talking about bears. Bears are one of the most interesting residents of the Forest. People look for bears, but when it comes to actually finding one, it can be scary, annoying…or an enjoyable wildlife sighting. Which description fits your bear encounter is more up to you than the bear – and a lot of what determines that encounter has to do with food.
Bears are eating machines during the summer. A bear in fall weighs about 30 percent more than a bear in spring, so a 200 pound bear needs to gain 60 pounds of fat during the summer. That fat will see it through a long cold winter without eating, so it is very important to the bear. Bears are also sleeping and resting machines – it is hard to put on fat if you are constantly exercising, so bears try to minimize their activity, and what activity they pursue is almost always related to eating.
Bears like to eat things which are high in fats and sugars, typically hazelnuts and acorns and berries, but when they can get it, they are very happy to dine on bird seed, hot dogs, cheese, and potato chips. It’s that last part that can get them into trouble. Bears are smart. They know it is easier to rip open some hamburger buns than to forage for tiny blueberries. They also have great memories for food locations. Some have been tracked traveling for miles to reach the same grove of acorn bearing oak trees each year. They will learn quickly and remember for a long time where they can find those hamburger buns and potato chips, so it is up to us to make sure that they never learn that our campground dumpsters, our portages, our campsites, and our tents are potential food sources. The best way to do that is to keep your food stored correctly.
If you are in a campground, keep food and garbage in a hard sided vehicle. Canvas covered sport vehicles and open truck beds are not enough. If you have an SUV or wagon where the contents can be seen through a window, cover your food or cooler with a blanket. Some bears have learned what a cooler looks like, and will try to break into the vehicle. They usually aren’t successful but they can do some real damage.
Never store food in a tent!
Don’t hang your food from a tree in a developed campground – most see enough use that a good food hanging tree will have the bark rubbed off the limb by ropes in a short time. If you’re at a campground with dumpsters for garbage, be sure to close, bar, and secure the lid of the dumpster. Do not leave garbage alongside the dumpster.
If you are in a wilderness or backcountry site, there are three ways to store food and garbage. The first is to eat it yourself. Plan meals to minimize leftovers and garbage. Our family has the ‘Big Spoon’ technique – if there are leftovers, everyone has one more big spoonful until they are gone.
The second method is to hang the food in a pack from a tree. There are several different methods to do this; our website has full directions. Regardless of which method you use, the end result has to be that the pack is 12 feet off the ground, four feet down from the branch, and six feet out from the trunk. This can be very difficult to accomplish, especially if you are in an area where there has been a recent fire.
A far easier method which is becoming more and more popular is to use a bear resistant food container. These containers are often required for backcountry camping in national parks, and buying or renting one can make camping in bear country a lot simpler, especially for someone like me whose free throw ability is zero and requires an hour or two to get the rope over the branch.
If you do use a bear resistant container, be sure it is truly bear resistant. Several types of food containers are commonly called bear barrels, but are not actually bear resistant. It is also important to keep someone with your food packs while portaging. Leaving a pack by itself while you head off with the canoe is asking for trouble. If you are doing a solo trip, this may mean that you have to carry the food pack back and forth down the portage several times, and this could be another good reason to get that bear resistant food container.
Keeping bears in the dark about human food sources requires everyone to practice good food storage all the time, even, or maybe especially, at sites where there are no bear problems. Bears at those sites haven’t learned yet to associate humans with food, and so long as they don’t learn that association, they won’t become pests.
Of course, it is also very important to practice good food storage where bears have learned that people and food go together. With that in mind, the Forest has implemented a food storage order for several lakes within the Boundary Waters. That order requires the use of proper pack hanging techniques or bear resistant food containers.
You may see the order in full on our website. Failure to store food correctly on those lakes could result in a fine, but really that’s not the worst of it. It could also result in expensive canoe packs being ripped and destroyed, or result in a spoiled camping trip because you have no food left, or even result in a dead bear if we need to remove a problem animal. Taking care of our bears requires taking the time to properly store food at all our campsites, and leaving the bears to continue their enviable life of eating, sleeping, and gaining weight.
On the road this week, expect truck traffic in the Tofte District on the Sawbill Trail, Dumbbell River Road, Wanless Road, Lake County 7, the Four Mile Grade, The Grade, Cook County 27, and Cook County 8. On the Gunflint side, trucks will be on the Bally Creek Road, Cook County 48, Cook County 7, Murmur Creek Road, Pike Lake Road, Greenwood Road, Sunfish Lake Road, and Cook County 14.
Until next week, may all your bear encounters be pleasant ones for you, and slightly disappointing ones for the bear.
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