Perimeter around tents?

This pic from google earth is in an area I frequently hike in. I've never seen someone put something like this around their tents before.

Is this supposed to keep animals out or something?

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/52891745

It would appear to be intended to deter animals. If it is electrified, the electrical source is not immediately apparent, but if it isn't electrified, it is guaranteed to be useless. Probably going to cause some terrible cursing if somebody need to leave the tent in the night to stumble to the bathroom.

People do all kind of strange things. Hard to say if this scheme was someone's personal brainstorm, or if they were the victims of an overzealous salesperson.

OK, looks like it's an electric fence...

http://www.udap.com/bearshock.htm

WAY overkill for that area, lol.

That's for sure

I used to wonder around that area a lot in the `80s. I don't think there was a single bear left around there back then. I know there weren't many. Are there any now?

I would think claymore mines would do a better job with less fuss, just be really really careful...
Jim

This side towards bears->

This is absolutely ridiculous. I hike in this region a lot (home base is Ventura) and there is no need for this silliness.

Afraid of mountain lions, maybe? Or maybe it was lighter than their bear canister...

Can you imagine going out for a nature call and ............... hahahahhahahaha

lol

O.K. I have now officially seen everything.

wow and i thought i was parnoid peeing on the trees that are around my camp.<< poor tree huggers

What is wrong with people...

Wow that is so lame! Talk about paranoia!! Don't people realize that animals will just leave us alone unless they have a good reason to bother us in the middle of the night; i.e leaving good smelling things in the tent. And let's be honest if a bear actually wanted to go into the tents, that dinky little perimeter is not going to stop him, electrified or not. Puhlease!!

I embiggened the picture and it does appear to have a ground wire and some kind of device attached to it in the lower left corner of the rig. If it's battery powered it wouldn't seem to have much juice to actually electrify the cords. Maybe it's a perimeter alarm of some kind? Lets you know if someone or something crosses the cords/wires?

I'd guess it has some capacitors for storage and delivers a high-voltage, low-amperage jolt. Think Taser or a camera flash.

It does seem silly. I don't know that area at all but would guess they have mountain lion and wild pigs. I understand the second can be pretty nasty, but I can't imagine myself camping surrounded by a fence that I'd inevitably stumble into and zap myself.

Cheers,

That google earth photo by the OM doesn't show all of the tents:

Okay, boggling now.

Maybe they are trying to keep the kids inside the tent?

I don't understand why you guys are hating on my security measure?

P.S. I'll use Claymore mines next time.

A pig would flatten that rig before it even realized it was shocked. I have spent well over two hundred nights in tents on islands (Santa Rosa Island and Santa Cruz Island) with substantial feral pig populations; I never had anything like trouble from them - at night, that is. Even the rare daylight encounters weren't that bad.

I agree that at the location this was overkill. Also it doesn't look well set-up.

However, a couple of years ago two people with experience were hiking in the far North of Alaska were eaten by a bear. At night pulled from their tent. In this area it is unlikely they simply forgot their normal bear routine. Up there I would use a bear electric fence... correctly.

=)

The alaska case was a very extreme circumstance where the persons sought out the bears and camped amongst them.

At least they're (the bear fence crew in the photo) getting outdoors. If that's what it took to get the guy/girl out, great. Maybe after a few trips they'll feel more at home.

I have younger friends whose parents till thinking backpacking is an extreme sport and very dangerous. We tend to fear all things foreign and new don't we?

god not those idiots!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America
June 23, 2005

The Huffmans were attacked while in their tent at a campsite along the Hulahula River 12 miles (19 km) upriver from Kaktovik. Two days later the campsite was discovered by three rafters while the bear was still nearby. The bear chased the rafters down the river for over half a mile until it finally gave up. Later, a North Slope Borough Police officer investigating the scene shot and killed the bear at the campsite.

This was in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska - not somewhere bears are habituated...

=)

And remember to mind the goats.

Oly goats gettin' frisky

Cheers,

p.s. If you value sanity do not read the article comments. Sheesh.

OK A long time ago and far far away, I rode a motorcycle to Alaska with a girl on the back and we spent 6 weeks touring alaska. We camped out all but two nights out of 6 weeks. When we left Homer, on the southern end of the Kenai Penninsula, our friends in Homer told su to not stop until we got to Anchorage and NOT under circumstances sould we camp on the penninsula and especially not up by the copper river. So yeh anyway we dilly dallied around and around dark we were still quite a ways from Anchorage so we pull into a very large totally empty campground and set up camp. As it was august it was light very late but before turning in I decided to go check the tent stakes and stuff and be sure we were ready to crash. I WAS STOOPED BEHIND THE TENT WHEN I HEARD LOW BREATHING LIKE SOMETHING WITH 55 GALLON DRUM SIZED LUNGS. The hair on all of my body stood straight out - yes it can - And I lept over the tent towards my rilfe which leaning against the picnic table. Luckily it didn't follow. BTW we're talking about maybe 1,500 pounds of coastal brown bear and it seems we were camped on the Copper River. Two nights later we're in a bar half way to the ferry boat landing and the peolpe at the bar were talking about the recent knews of a bear expert being eaten 2 nights before on the Copper river. I remember that night a Winnabego pulled in, well it seems a large bear grabbed one "bear expert" and ate him and it may have been the one behind our tent and it may have happened while we were there.
Jim - this is why I mentioned claymores around a camp site

If you click on that shot you get a larger version of it. looking at that all I see is string /guylines no electrical wires.
My guess is that it was a beluga whale fence. Belugas are afraid of string.
Franco

There is very clearly something connecting the top two strands of the fence in the bottom left corner of the shot. There is also something green (what appears to me to be a wire) that looks to be connecting the bottom strand of fence to stake in the ground in that corner (some sort of a ground maybe?). On the right side of the fence, if you look closely you can see by the twist that the fence material is some type of flat ribbon, not a round string. The only flat ribbon type material that I know of that would be used in a case like that, is an electric fence product that has small wire woven into it. Also, down in the botom left corner, there is a black box that I dont know the identity of, but it has the same green materal rolled up infront of it that appears to be linking the bottom strand to that stake. I also wonder if that may be the power source. I know it takes very little power to supply a fence. Entire pastures can be powered by a car battery for quite a while. A fence that small only running a few hours at a time wouldn't require much of a power source. I also have read about a couple who did a four wheeler trip from canada to mexico (funded by the maker of the bikes they were on) and they discussed having a fence like that, so they are out there.

James, if you click on the second link I posted it will tell you all about the fence.