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Archive for October 27th, 2009

The Best Paragraph I read Today

photo by fantomaster/flickr

From the Journal of Mammalogy:

There are several non–mutually exclusive hypotheses for why bears selected minivans. First, it is possible that minivans were more likely to emit food odors regardless of whether they contained meaningful amounts of food available. This argument is based on the fact that minivans are designed for families with children and small children in particular are notorious for spilling food and drink while riding in vehicles. Thus, vehicles transporting children would emit greater food odors, making them attractive to bears. If this hypothesis is correct then any vehicle transporting small children, regardless of class type, should be targeted by bears. To test this supposition, park personnel collecting information on vehicles broken into should also note whether car seats were present, or whether small children are regularly transported in the vehicle, or both.

From a fascinating study looking at which vehicles seemed to occasion the most ursine break-ins in Yosemite National Park (”SELECTIVE FORAGING FOR ANTHROPOGENIC RESOURCES BY BLACK BEARS: MINIVANS IN YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK,” by STEWART W. BRECK, NATHAN LANCE, AND VICTORIA SEHER); perhaps inevitably, in terms of animal/vehicle adaptation, it reminded me of the observations of crows using pedestrian signal crossings to retrieve the nuts they had dropped into the street (where they could be “opened” by passing cars).

Note to thieves: Another reason bears favored minivans is that they’re easier to break into.

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Posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 6:38 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

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