There are many variables that could be responsible for a bear canister’s failed performance in the wild:

• Wildlife. Sometimes it is a relentless and creative bear that simply will not give up and finds a way to crack into the canister, even if he throws it off a cliff to smash on the rocks below.
• User. Other times it is operator error, a decision made that compromised the canister’s functionality.
• Product. Other times the product unit was weak or manufactured wrong and was not working correctly.

In an article about bear canister failure, based on real data collected from Yosemite National Park, it becomes clear that there are many different variables that contribute to canister success and failure. Andrew Skurka, in his article titled “Not Bear or Idiot Proof: Documented Canister Failures”, states the following:

“For every, one bear canister failure, there are several cases of bears obtaining food or scented items that were:

• Kept inside of an unattended backpack or shelter;
• Hung in tree;
• Buried; or,
• Left out overnight unprotected.”

Bears everywhere are creative, motivated, and super curious creatures. Perhaps you have heard of the “Cliff Bear” of Yosemite – a bear that learned by accident that if a canister rolled off a cliff it would shatter into pieces below leaving all the treats scattered about to be gobbled up. The canisters that took the tumble cracked open regardless of the brand. They were also entirely irretrievable.

The Sierra Wild page on “Bear Essentials” provided some amusing albeit sobering titles based on various bear provision thievery and break-ins that we published below. You may find yourself both chuckling and shuddering at the same time, but this gives you a glimpse into the kind of investigative work we at BearVault® do as we continue our research and development to provide the most effective and practically useful equipment we can provide.

• “Tarzan” – In the backcountry, bears climb to tree branches above a suspended food bag and jump onto the food bags, dislodging them on route to the ground. No really, they do. It is crazy.
• “Dinner Guest”- Now that steel bear lockers are common throughout the Sierra, some habituated bears resort to walking right into campsites during mealtime to grab food directly from picnic tables, open vehicles, and yes, open bear boxes!
• “Scissor Teeth” – In the backcountry, some bears gnaw through ropes or branches to drop food bags to the ground.
• “Oscar the Grouch” – Some bears learn to paw open trash cans or dumpsters to pull out trash or crawl inside. Bears sometimes get stuck inside dumpsters and are collected with the trash, either getting compacted and killed by trash truck machinery or injured when escaping the collection truck. Help prevent this by always latching the lid on dumpsters and trash cans.
• “Aqua Man” – At least one bear in the Sierra is known to swim to reach rafts where food is being stored.
• “Desperate Dirtbag” – Rock climbers suspending their food bags off the ground have lost their wall munchies to incredibly skilled free-climbing bear stone-masters. Food hung over the lip of cliffs has been pulled up and munched by bears on the summit.
• “Car Crunch” – Broken window glass, bent door frames, popped camper shells… all to reach that apple core you left under the passenger’s seat.
• “Trunk Trick” – An add-on to the basic “Car Crunch”. After breaking a window, the bear rips out your back seat to reach that toothpaste you left in the trunk.
• “Cat Burglar” – It is not just cars. Leave the door or window open at your cabin or hotel room and a bear will happily rip through the screen to find that granola bar in your luggage.