“And as if fearing that anything eatable in all his dominions should escape being eaten, [the bear] breaks into cabins to look after sugar, dried apples, bacon, etc.”
John Muir, Among the Animals of the Yosemite
(from Wilderness Essays 1980)
I am not sure when my father first developed his plan to lure a bear to the vacation cabin where we stayed in the little town of Wawona in Yosemite National Park. He must have been thinking about it for some time. He certainly had plenty of opportunities to observe bear behavior during our annual week-long vacations in the Park during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Back then Yosemite’s black bears frequented the Wawona area and its vacation cabins regularly. One or two bear sightings a week became the norm. Sometimes a bear would ramble past the cabin during the day, but most times a large bruin could be seen around dusk or even real late at night. For the late appearances, a few family members, including me, would take turns staying up, waiting for the signature sound of trashcans being knocked over in the distance followed by progressively louder banging as a bear got closer and closer to the trashcan we staked out near our cabin.
Cabin trashcans were by no means “bear-proof” at that time. In fact, the National Park Service did not institute a Human-Bear Management Program until 1975 (and human behavior, including my father’s, had not yet been shaped to dissuade human/bear contact!). Consequently, the small, waist-high steel trashcans provided ready access to a buffet of human leftovers for any black bear that wished to investigate.
Sometimes our excitement over trashcan noises would be followed by dismay when our visitor turned out to be a family of raccoons. We could usually tell the difference between the noise made by a trashcan frequented by a raccoon family and one visited by a bear. With raccoons, the lid banged once or twice as it fell to the ground. With a bear, however, not only did the lid go flying some distance, but the trashcan itself went tumbling, ensuring the maximum number of people awakened from their sleep.
Bear visits remained a special highlight of our vacation, adding a lot of drama that kept us wanting more. Not that we were short on drama (how would you like to share a vacation home with 13 family members?), but being visited by a bear? C’mon! People all over the world go to zoos for an experience like that. But we saw the real thing in its “natural” environment, at least, to us it seemed natural as we watched with fascination from the “safety” of our cabin.
I cannot say my Dad’s plan, however, could be described as “natural.” It would, in fact, not only be frowned upon today, but it could also come with a $5,000 fine. Grand Teton National Park Deputy Superintendent Gopaul Noojibail said this about offering food to bears, “Feeding wildlife in a national park is a serious offense and presents severe risks to the animal and to humans. Human carelessness doesn’t just endanger humans, it can result in an animal’s death.”
Still, at the time, my Dad’s plan made perfect sense considering two important factors. First, the plan included bacon. Have you ever smelled bacon frying from your neighbor’s house on a Sunday morning? It’s a smell that travels well and delights its recipients. According to Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine, “bacon is the king of food. You can savor it slice by slice, enjoy it in sandwiches, indulge in bacon-laced chocolate, or smear on bacon-flavored lip balm. There's no mistaking the odor of bacon frying. You can smell it cooking anywhere in a building and when it's gone, its lingering scent remains.”
She adds that the alluring smell comes when the “volatile organic compounds from the Maillard reaction are released, so the smell of sizzling bacon drifts through the air . . . The fat melts and volatile hydrocarbons vaporize.” According to “Serious Eats”, “The Maillard reaction is many small, simultaneous chemical reactions that occur when proteins and sugars in and on your food are transformed by heat, producing new flavors, aromas, and colors.”
So, part of the plan included my Dad storing up the bacon grease from the bacon he cooked for breakfast. By the end of the week, he had a fair amount that filled at least a third of a 39 oz. coffee can. His plan included putting the can of bacon grease in the trashcan to wait for the “king of food” to entice a bear to our cabin. We could not see the trashcan from the deck so would have to rely on the crashing of the can to alert us to a bear visitor.
The second feature of the plan relied on the amazing nose of the American black bear. That nine-inch “schonz” isn’t just for show. The inside of a black bear's nose, called the nasal mucosa, has a hundred times more surface area than that of a human. According to the National Institute of Health, bears “are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth. For example, the average dog’s sense of smell is 100 times better than a human’s. A blood hound’s is 300 times better. A bear’s sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound’s or 2,100 times better than a human’s.” Plus, the part of the brain that corresponds to the sense of smell in a bear is five times bigger than that of a human.
What a royal combination! The grease from the “king of foods” and the nose from the king of olfaction! Talk about a Maillard reaction! With the black bear’s long warm tongue melting the bacon grease all kinds of flavors and aromas would explode upon the nose of any bear fortunate to be at that trashcan first.
Although I imagined at least ten bears joining us for a gathering around the trashcan, I’d be happy with just one! And that is what we got! Late in the evening, about 11:30 pm, with my eyelids drooping considerably, a BANG! CRASH! BANG! echoed through the Wawona evening. I stood quickly and raced out to the deck as other family members followed. We got to the deck overlook in time to see a fat cinnamon-colored bear holding the grease-filled coffee can with his teeth, moving away from the deck where we all watched from.
Wanting to eat in peace, he rumbled down below the cabin to a dark gully. We focused our flashlights on him and watched him sitting on his rear with his snout fully engulfed in the can.
For about 30 minutes that huge bear licked the inside of that can as if in a trance. No telling what he experienced when the heat of its tongue melted that bacon grease. Surely, the stored-up flavors and aromas in that bacon goo produced by the Maillard reaction stimulated that bear’s nasal mucosa beyond any bear incident it had ever experienced!
There is no doubt my Dad’s plan to lure a bear to our rental cabin, although not recommended today, could be considered a success, thanks to the "king of foods” and the king of olfaction!
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