DWK2 said:
Will,
I very much appreciate your response. I am curious whether you have ever had a failure with your electric fence? Has a bear ever just walked right through it, dug under it or otherwise defeated it?
I'm also interested in successes that you have seen. Have you actually viewed any bears walk up to the fence, investigate, and be deterred by it?
Thanks a lot. In Western Alaska there are lots of brownies. I've seen as many as 9 from one camp and once had to run three out of camp in a single afternoon.
Best regards,
DancesWithKnives
I havn't had any failures, nor have I actually witnessed a bear zapped by it. We did have bears comming by our camp all summer, so I know they were around, but we kept the camp clean so it could very well be that they never tried.
Bears are a constant threat where I work, and electrical fensing is commonly used to protect camps, and those who use them are quite satisfied and seem to accpet it as the best solution for bear control.
I was recently at a conference in Yellowknife where a Park Warden gave a presentaion on bear safty and electrical fencing. He presented many instances where fencing was used to protect remote exploration camps (much like those I have worked in) from Polar and Grizzly bears. The one failure he noted was an instance where a bear walked into the fence stepping on the bottom wire and grounding out the entire circut. This was the only thing I could concieve happening with the one I built.
Mine was like a cattle fence, where the fence was one entire circut with a ground rod. The bear would touch the fence, closing the circut and get zapped. In frozen, or dry ground, the ground rod won't work well. Also, if anything like a branch or tall grass touches the bottom (or any) wire it will short out the circut. The Warden suggested a much better set up: Suppose your fence is 4 wires high. Rather than have one single continuous wire wrapped around the posts as I had, have a seperate wire for each layer. Hook up the power source to each of the wires, alternating positve and negatve for each wire. Now, a ground rod isn't need. When the bear touches two of the wires, by most likely sticking his head through, he will get a double jolt as his body closes a circut between two wires. Now it makes no difference if he steps on the bottom wire since the others are not affected. This type of set up has supposidly never failed. I think from the descrip that the one you are looking to buy works like the second set up I described with alternating +ve and -ve wires.
It is kind of hard to explain, I hope you are able to visualize what I am trying to describe. Maybe I can send you some pics, or link you to some online.
-Will
