Fisher the bear

“Today's Sac Bee ran a story about Fisher the bear, this is the California Black Bear that lives at the local zoo & is the official "tester" of bear-proof containers.

Zoo's break-in bear devours his work
Park service, others rely on Fisher to test food-storage devices.
By Jon Ortiz -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Saturday, August 23, 2003
He could kill a man with a single, devastating blow.
He is a terrifying figure, an agent of the federal government who has humbled corporate heads and outsmarted the keenest minds.
Yet children smile and laugh when they see him, and crowd around when he does his demolition work.
Fisher is the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary's 11-year-old California black bear. His job is to gnaw on backpacks, trample trash cans and lay waste to food lockers. He performs the quality-control test mandated by the National Park Service for anything campers use to store food or garbage.
"He succeeds where other bears fail," said Roberta Ratcliff, a zoo spokeswoman. "He's a true professional."
Fisher is a legend in the emerging bear-proof container market, an industry spawned by the realization that human lives and property were increasingly threatened over things such as granola bars and candy wrappers.
Backpackers in the Sierra Nevada have found that time-tested tricks for keeping bears away from food and trash are out of date. Dangling food from a rope tied to a tree limb doesn't work any more.
"The bears have adapted," said Dave Reynolds, who has hiked Yosemite National Park trails for 20 years. "You've heard of 'smarter than the average bear'? I'm telling you, there's no such thing as an 'average' bear."
The 64-year-old retiree has had his share of ursine experiences.
"Everyone around here has a story about bears ripping up a campsite or breaking into a car for food," Reynolds said in a cell phone interview during a recent camping trip. "I used to hang stuff from a tree limb using rope and duffel bags. No more."
That's because one morning three summers ago, Reynolds woke up in the middle the night to a horrible crash.
"A bear had chewed through an 8-inch-thick tree branch," he said. "Four days of provisions -- gone."
The problem, say bear experts, is more than stolen Snickers bars or torn-up tents. The problem is bears like Fisher.
As a cub, he spent his time nabbing fish at a Nevada County cleaning station near Bridgeport, a show of fearlessness that officials worried would lead to a confrontation between Fisher and an unaware angler. Rangers tried all manner of methods to scare him away, and even returned him to the back country. He came right back.
"He was so determined that he just refused to leave the station," said Vicki Valentine, an educator at the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary. "He thought, 'Why hunt for food when humans will do it for me?' It made perfect sense."
Eventually, the state Department of Fish and Game designated Fisher a "habituated bear." His instinct to feed on fish overcame his instinct to flee at the sight of people. And that made him dangerous.
Most such bears are euthanized. But Fisher was young enough that wildlife experts thought he could adjust to captivity. So DFG officials found a home for him in Folsom and gave him the job that suits his persistent nature.
Perhaps nowhere is the problem of habituation better illustrated than in Yosemite, where nearly 400 black bears thrive.
There, careless campers and sightseers who leave food in their vehicles routinely return to broken windows, doors peeled off hinges, and shredded car seats.
Yosemite park rangers' instructions are simple: If it can go in your mouth or on your skin, it goes in a properly closed, bear-proof container.
"We had a woman here not long ago who learned the hard way," said Yosemite Park Ranger Deb Schweizer. "She was cooking some food just a couple of feet from her open bear box. The bear came right up while she was standing there and took what it wanted."
The problem reached its peak in 1998, when a record 1,590 "bear incidents" were reported in Yosemite, according to the park service. Bears broke into 1,143 cars, causing $659,000 in damage, and also wreaked havoc in the back country, ripping into backpacks to get food. Seven people suffered minor injuries trying to protect their food from bears. Three bears that had become overly aggressive were killed.
In response, officials from Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite national parks and the Inyo National Forest formed the Sierra Interagency Black Bear Group two years ago. The SIBBG pushed established standards for bear-proof food and trash containers used in their parks.
Today, part of those product standards include an hour with Fisher. If he can't break it, puncture it or rip it open, it's certified bear-proof, ready to put on the market.
Fisher illustrated Wednesday the folly of using regular storage containers. Zookeepers loaded a plastic ice chest with some of Fisher's favorite treats, including a whole watermelon, strawberries, bread, peanut butter and grape jelly. Then they cross-wrapped a sturdy nylon rope around the ice chest six times, triple-knotted it and handed it over to Fisher.
He cracked it open in four minutes.
"He's slow today," said zookeeper Amy van der Molen. "I've seen him do it in 90 seconds."
That's not all he's done.
Fisher has bitten holes in a bulletproof Kevlar knapsack, trashed canisters made of composite metal and stripped steel lids from containers built like mortar shells.
Then there was the time Fisher tested a steel, 64-cubic-foot food locker filled with bear treats.
"It took six guys to take it off the back of the truck," Valentine said. "So they set it down and then, like everyone does when Fisher tests something, they stood around and watched."
Fisher rocked the 12-gauge steel box back and forth while the workers chuckled at his frustration. He got mad and tossed the locker into a nearby pool.
"One by one those guys stopped laughing as they realized they were going to have to pull that thing out of the pool -- and it was full of water."
McClintock Metal Inc., a Woodland firm that builds a line of bear-proof trash containers for homes, campgrounds and national parks across the United States, has used Fisher to test its products.
"Bears take us to school all the time," said Bruce Christiansen, McClintock's sales and marketing manager. "It's a constant cat-and-mouse game between engineers and the bears. We figure out something that keeps them out, they figure out how to get around it. It never stops."”

“Hey Phaedrus, did you hear about the bear they captured near an elementary school in Rio Rancho. Two weeks ago it was released in the Manzano's. Now its been released in the Zuni's. 50 miles from the Manzano's to Rio Rancho as the crow flies, and two freeway crossings.”

“Last I saw of you there wasn't a beard...

Good article man!”

“Hmm, I have to show this to HPM. He's working on a new product.”

“I actually hadn't heard about that!


If I were around they'd have nothing to worry about :)”

“Yeah, cool article. Thanks!”

“Nice read Graybeard.”