Mark your territory

mikepond · 03-21-2011, 08:56 AM

Has anyone else heard about this myth? A friend of mine told me about it over the weekend and I could not help but laugh. I am pretty sure if a bear is hungry enough or curious enough, you marking your territory is not going to stop him from coming to visit.

ChadTower · 03-21-2011, 10:13 AM

Maybe, maybe not. If there is even a chance it costs you nothing, right?

Maybe it won't stop a hungry bear but what about a curious bear? Or maybe other less dangerous but still troublesome critters like raccoons and skunks.

Grandpa · 03-21-2011, 10:22 AM

It must work for elephants as well, as often as I mark the territory around my site during the night, I've never had an elephant or bear intrusion.

dinosaur · 03-24-2011, 07:02 AM

Good thinking, Grandpa! It suddenly dawned on me why none of us has ever seen a Sasquatch.

JollyRogers · 03-27-2011, 09:50 AM

Not certain either way, however I tend to lean towards truth based on 1 experience.

A buddy and I went out in Sequoia National park for 10 days several years ago. We drove in as far as we could then hiked in another 2 days.

We were waaay in there. The idea was to get deep into the woods and the higher elevations to fish for golden trout (which we did, so much so that we crimped the barbs off of our hooks!

)

We saw a bear on the first day on the way in and had seen some old bear scat on our day hikes. But nothing to be too concerned about.

On the 7th day a park ranger on horseback found us and we chatted for awhile. He was amazed we had hiked in this far and said he hadn't seen anyone this deep in the park for over 15 years. He also warned us that we were dead center in the middle of the territory of the biggest bear in the park and stressed storing our food in the steel bear boxes staked out throughout the park. We assured him we were using the bear boxes. He stated that since we were so far out that he didn't think this bear had tasted any people food yet and wanted to keep it that way.

We had a nice talk and swapped some fishing tips and he was soon on his way. The next evening we heard the bear tearing dead logs apart to get to the grubs/ants inside. It went on for some time after dark and was really close to our camp. My buddy freaked. He has no tolerance for bears.

So I got to enjoy the sound of a folding shovel banging against a tin plate, accompanied by screaming and hollering into the darkness for most of the night and a big fire.

We had been "marking our territory" in a perimeter around our camp all week. The next morning I went to "mark" and noticed that all the grass where I had scavenged some firewood the night before had been matted down during the night and the logs I scavenged sticks off of were torn asunder.

Further investigation found huge bear tracks. Not grizzly sized, but not far from it. And obviously something had bedded down in the tall grass. Keep in mind I got our firewood from that exact location the afternoon before.

There were tracks all around our perimeter, but none of them actually crossed it. It took some fancy talking to convince my buddy that the bear wasn't interested in us to keep him from packing up and moving out that instant. We enjoyed the day and didn't see any bears.

One side of our camp bordered a stream. The next morning I get poked awake by my buddy whispering my name and pointing towards the stream. I open my eyes and look where he is pointing and on the other side of the stream is the biggest brown bear I have ever seen. He had is back to us and only occasionally looked over his shoulder at us but didn't seem interested.

I went to get my camera and started moving towards the stream when he bounded off into the tall grass and dens foliage on the other side of the stream. There was no keeping my buddy on the mountain any longer and we hiked down early the next morning.

A few things to consider...

We buried all of our fish bits far from camp.
We only had food out when we were eating and otherwise kept it in a bear box about 100 yards from camp.
Nothing was cooked in the fire and all of the dishes were cleaned in the stream. (No dirty food water was poured out in our camp)
We never carried more than a little dry trail mix on our person
The bear had never tasted human food and as such apparently hadn't viewed us as a food source.

Now, taking all of that into consideration, I believe that marking our territory kept the bear out of our camp. However if he had sensed that there was any food to be had in our camp I don't think marking would have made any difference.
We had been marking that perimeter for a full week before the bear showed up.

HikingGuy · 03-27-2011, 05:15 PM

I have heard this as well as tying pantyhose full of human hair around the campsite to deter wild animals and above all, keeping food out of your camp.

LittleLady · 03-27-2011, 08:17 PM

I have never heard of this, but agree with the "worth a try" thinking. Easy enough to do I suppose. I'd have to leave it up to other people though, I don't think I could see myself making it a point to mark my territory.

Judy Ann · 03-27-2011, 09:01 PM

A friend of mine tried that to keep the deer out of his garden. I made a hunter scarecrow, put it in a deerstand in the middle of the squash and okra, and put a corn feeder a hundred yards away. Fresh tracks in the dirt early the next morning and pictures on the motion detector camera for confirmation on age and number. If the location were further out in the country we would have enjoyed some venison cooked on the grill!