Any ideas for keeping bears out?

SouthParkSteve wrote:
Thanks to all for your input so far. I have heard about the ammonia, and I am considering that idea--or possibly the electric wire. I have also thought about a motion sensor alarm, but I don't want to wake up the whole neighborhood at 3am.....

For those of you who doubt this is a bear--I can definitely assure you it was. I did not post interior photos, as the damage there was mostly cosmetic (he tore a cabinet door off, etc.), so not really as much of a concern--it could have been a LOT worse. I know it was a bear because of the puncture marks on the bottles of RV anti-freeze that I had stored inside that he dumped all over, as well as the bite marks on my salt and pepper shakers, etc.

There were also patches of bear fur scraped off in a few places inside, and big bear paw prints along the wall from where he looked in the windows before deciding to pull back the corner of the door.

Not SURE if this is the same guy, but this one visited the front deck of my house about 6 weeks before the first break in (these photos were taken through my dining room window with no telephoto lens.....):

He is my prime suspect at the moment......

As I stated previously, I'm not saying you didn't have a bear in the trailer, but, that door was NOT opened by a bear. It's not physically possible unless somebody was dangling it by it's hind legs.

Bears can't rotate their paws to a 'palm up' position, nor can lift something without biting it and lifting their head. Bears almost always, as stated by prior posters, open things like doors by peeling it from the top down. They have tremendous power in this position. They do sometimes merely force their way in by a 'shoving' style move against something till it buckles and gives way.

Bears forage far more than they hunt, and they're omnivores so they'll eat pretty much anything they come across, even ants and grubs in rotten logs. An already opened trailer would be an open invitation to go in and poke around.