Study: Yosemite bears prefer breaking into minivans over other cars
By APMonday, October 26, 2009
Study: Yosemite bears favorite car: Minivans
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — What’s bigger than a picnic basket and even better than one in the eyes of black bears that call Yosemite National Park home?
Minivans driven by families with children who leave behind a trail of spilled juice boxes, Cheerios and coolers carrying other snacks, according to a study published in October in the Journal of Mammalogy.
Park scientists set out to study whether the bears had developed a taste for certain vehicle models after noticing that more minivans seemed to get broken into than other types of cars.
Their research proved them right: minivans represented 29 percent of the 908 vehicles torn into by bears between 2001 and 2007, even though they made up just 7 percent of the cars that visited Yosemite.
Tags: Animals, Biology, California, Land, Leisure Travel, Mammals, Natural Resource Management, North America, Outdoor Recreation, Recreation And Leisure, Travel, United States, Yosemite National Park, Zoology