Bear Toys

[Mal Paso]

I blame it on Igloo and all the other ice chest manufacturers. Colored plastic attracts bears! I tried using one of those red olive barrels for a water settling tank, must have been a lot of fun. I bought a blue kerosene 5 gal jug for the diesel generator hoping for better results than red and this trip to the cabin I found tooth holes in it too. The real demonstration was 4 buckets sitting side by side with their lids on. 3 were Home Depot Orange filled with washed sand. The 4th was white with drywall mud. Not a scratch on the white one.

[Wayne Smith]

It's not possible that the smell of dry wall mud repelled him?

[richhodg66]

Almost like big puppies, something appeals to them and they chew it up.

We don't have any here and I'm glad, but bears are kind of cool.

[dale2242]

Bears will bite things to taste them.
Trying to see if it contains something good to eat.

[richhodg66]

Did the can have kerosene in it when they chewed on it?

[375RUGER]

I don't think it's the color. Plastics outgas some odor they like. Bear will chew up the vinyl coating on cables such as you find on tree stands, as well as the seats and fenders on 4-wheelers.
I hid a tree stand once in the woods so I wouldn't have to take it back and forth. I piled a bunch of dead wood on it, it was not visible. Bear came along and uncovered it, chewed on the vinyl coated cables and shredded the seat.

[Mal Paso]

Did the can have kerosene in it when they chewed on it?

It was 4/5 filled with Diesel but the tooth holes were in the top as I had blocked most of the access.

I can't believe it's the plastic as the white bucket was untouched. Interesting to hear about others experiences. The first years I owned the property I only saw evidence of 1 huge bear. 9 inch paw prints and huge piles of poo. He was the one that got me started in 44Mag. He never chewed on any of my stuff or caused problems. For years I never saw him just his tracks. I finally saw him a few years ago. I heard him first but didn't recognize the sound. He was trying to sneak past camp, moving slowly, but his weight would snap branches on the ground and gave him away. My neighbor found him a couple years ago, shot by hunters who left him to rot. We run unauthorized hunters off now. Since then there have been several small bears that love colored plastic.

[Scrounge]

Almost like big puppies, something appeals to them and they chew it up.

We don't have any here and I'm glad, but bears are kind of cool.

Bears are only cool when they are a long ways away! Like in Alaska!