Why didn DEC install more cable systems – or at least keep the ones that were already present – instead on requiring the use of bear-resistant canisters?
DEC, with approval from the Adirondack Park Agency, had installed a number of pulley-type cable systems in the EHPZ in the late 1990s as a pilot program. These cable systems were more effective in keeping food away from bears than traditional rope hangs, and were used extensively by campers. However, the bears learned that these sites were a concentrated source of food. Bears were able to regularly obtain food from the cables through persistent effort. They learned to break the cable components through chewing or physically abusing the cable systems, or by defeating the cable hangs when campers incorrectly used the cables to hang their food.
