Subject: RE: bears and bells (was: Camping Alert)
Date: Feb 20 21:45:33 1998
From: Don Baccus - dhogaza at pacifier.com


At 08:40 PM 2/20/98 -0800, Michael Price wrote:

>In valleys which get a lot of cold-air ponding and consequent heavy dews, on
>the forest floor there's usually a ground-covering of thick moss plus heavy
>vegetation which absorbs high-frequency sounds of small bells before they've
>had a chance to travel very far, while lower-pitched voices will carry
>further. Birds don't seem to be able to hear the lower freqencies, and
>territorial forest birds just carry on singing.

Herrero, in "Bear Attacks - Their Causes And Prevention", discounts noise
making. He thinks it's a good idea because it might occasionally work,
but in general thinks that such noises aren't loud enough to hear far enough
away to provide ample warning. Air-horns, like used for foghorns on boats,
are pretty good he thinks but he recognizes that most folks don't really want
to blatt their way down the trail.

He places his faith in numbers, frankly. Groups of 4+ are almost never
attacked
no matter what the situation if they're close together (there are exceptions,
of course). And on horseback he thinks you're almost immune, though he
himself seems to prefer to wander about on foot.




- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net