The gross and crappy but necessary brown page

With apologies to Pooh bear, this page is about bear pooh, or actually, people poop.

Just as guides along the Grand Canyon now teach their clients to use a pack-it-ALL-out bag and portapotty system, when we visit high use areas, it’s time we thought about what to do with our body wastes.

Smelly, unsightly, potential source of diseases - get the issues? Many of the disease organisms we all carry in our gut end up on the flies' feet, and when those flies walk on your sandwich you may get ill. Now that so many of us use the same outdoor areas, we need to rethink our actions.

Make a small package of tissues and a heavy duty freezer bag with a zipper slide part of your field equipment. When you get home, empty the contents down the toilet, zip up the baggie, and dispose of it with your non-recyclables.

Fox-Summer
SCATS

Bear

Fox-Winter
SCATS

You-Know-Who

Leave nothing but footprints, as they say.

No S_ _ T ! Well, actually, learning to recognize SCATS, as they are more delicately called in the wildlife world, is very interesting. Learning to read tracks and other animal sign gives you an environmental awareness that will change the way you see the world. In fact, professional tracker Paul Rezendes entitles his remarkable book Tracking and the Art of Seeing (Camden House Publishing, Inc.).

Return to VNC Homepage