Descenting packaged food

calyth

calyth

#!/bin/sh of a man
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Feb 23, 2002
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I've heard that one should not even leave a chocolate bar in your tent if you're in bear country, but I'm curious why? Does the packaging leak the scent, or did the scent just hang on to the packaging?
If it's the latter, is it possible for someone to remove it?
 
Bears (much like dogs), have a tremendous sense of smell and can detect food smells from either of the two ways you mentioned, unless the packaging is very good. This is why food or anything that may smell of food should never be in or around your tent in bear country (especialy in parks where people have fed them), cooking should be done well away form where you sleep, and food should be hung in a tree to keep the bears from at getting it.
 
A bears sense of smell is about 20 times better than ours, so I imagine they can smell the smallest hint of food, or a food-like scent. When I'm in bear country, I hang everything that has any scent including soap, chapstick, sunblock, dirty dishes and all trash etc. As a side note, bears in the Sierra's can even recognize what a cooler looks like, and will break into your car to get at it, even if it's empty!
 
I'm not sure whether tknife's 20x better figure is accurate; that seems rather low. Humans have much worse olfactory sense that most mammals. Our noses are almost completely "blind" or "deaf" or whatever the word would be. Just to put this in perspective, bloodhounds can have a sense of smell 300,000 times better than humans! Bears are reputed to have better senses of smell than most animals, whatever the specific figure is. They can use their olfactory organs to sense their environment in ways we could hardly imagine.

Definitely take precautions to minimize food scents around your campsite, when in bear country.
 
The easiest way I've found to kill the scent is to use mothballs made of paradichlorobenzene (they usually say "para" on them, rather than "naptha"). I've tested these against many bears and varmints and they have always dissuaded them. Of course, you have to seal the food inside an inner bag to make sure that the mothballs don't stink it up. And if the food will be stored near you, you need an outer bag to make sure the mothballs don't stink you up.

The reason for using the mothballs is that my friends and I occasionally camp above the northern limit of trees in Alaska/Yukon/NWT. You can't hang your food and frequently you can't get all of your food into your bear resistant containers. Mothballing the least essential chow has been the next best approach for us.
 
Yay. That sounds like a good solution.
Cause with my awkward eating habbits, I could well be panging in the stomach when I wake up at the middle of the night. Having something that would repel those pesky food hunters would help ;)
 
We certainly give off a strong scent. However, unless a bear is habituated to the concept of humans and food being together, the scent of a human will usually send a wilderness bear in the opposite direction.
 
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