This is very interesting About bears.

[Boar]

Just got done reading an article of, yes wouldnt ya know it? Choclate an its toxic effect on bears. Choclate has a ingrediant called Theobromine thats poisonous to bear an dogs but most of kinda knew that about dogs. The article went on to talk about how chocolate can sicken an kill other animals also like pine martens, fishers, yotes, wolves, an COONS. so now i know how to iradicate coons on the bait pile, hehehehehe. It talks about the Theobromine additive is much more toxic in bakers chocolate which is the worst of it, then dark, then milk chocolate. I guesse a cub was been found dead in Pennsylvania due to chocolate bars placed out for viewing purposes. Michigan has a similar report of a cub link to death by chocolate that fed at a site. This can be hard to verify cause it usually takes hours for to much of it to kill a cub which generally means they are not near a bait site so linking the two together is tough. So they say chocolate is a bad thing. I have used choclate many times with no bad effects that im aware of, so they go into weight ratio an Mereck Veterinary manual which states choclate per pound for being lethal for dogs.

A 30 lb dog would have to eat 30 oz. of choclate almost 2lbs. to be lethal. But not alot if info on toxicity to bears. The bigger the bear the bigger the amount of chocolate needed they say. So cubs can be really suseptable to chocalate than larger or adult bear. Even Dr. Lynn Rogers talked about a 2 year old female that had eaten hundreds of lbs. of candy bars between one august/steptember baiting an live to 22 yrs old, still alive an produced 3 healthy cubs.

So chocolate CAN cause tummy aches in some bear. I knew the possibility of eating too much could, but using it the way I do, I dont think so. But most of the choclate used in bating is milk choc. which is less toxic to begin with. untill they outlaw it i'll use as i always have, as a treat, dessert so to speak, I Never have use it as a staple, i throw it around to have bear trample down vegitation ect.. melt it an pour it over dog food ect.. burn it for scent ect.. Which is genereally what we all do. i can now see that if a guy put a large chunk like my 50 lb tootie roll that it would make any thing sick or kill it for that matter.

I have hundreds of lbs of chocolate. I intend to use it all till i cant or its gone. A bear hunter learns what a bear wants to eat by observing the site itself, if something is pushed aside or continually left uneaten then its a know brainer but it might get eating by the next bear, their all different.

It gose on to say that handfulls of choclate or frosted doughnuts ect.. shouldnt be a problem but buckets of choclate cherries could be. No documentation from other states of death by chocolate in bears or states where baitings is leagal. A very interesting read none the less. Makes a guy think if he is using choclate an cubs are on the site, best not to use it at all then I guesse. Getting close now, getting a fever, stomach aches, nausea, must be the snickers i ate. Naw, Its bear fever ya all!!! Latr boar

[x1957x]

So Boar. What you are saying is that a 300 lb bear would need 300 oz. which equals out to 18 3/4 lb's of chocolate. With the avg. bear weighing in at 150 lb's that would equal out to 9lb's 60z. of the brown goodies then! LOL. Then you would have to try to figure the percentage of how many other bears and rodents are at the buffet table to get a correct amount. Haw, heck. Thats to much work. Just give them a little as a treat then.

[kelly-p]

Boar is on to something here. How much chocolate makes a bear sick tho? There are some things put into bear baits that if the bear eats too much the bear gets sick. Then the bear learns that if it eats at that bait it gets sick. Then it avoids that bait and goes to a different bait. How many people throw out a big bait that is hit hard hard and then goes dead? Maybe the bear moved on because it got sick from the bait at that site.

[mrklean]

beer is toxic to humans but we keep drinking it

[lichen fox]

I once dumped a 5 quart pail of "fermented" chokecherrys on a very active bait site...actually it was chokecherry's that had been soaking in Vodka and sugar for about 6 weeks...(making a homemade flavored liquor)...thought it would be a good treat for the bear and at worst he may be sleeping it off at the bait site when I returned...well, he hit it one more time and never returned!! Probably wasn't feeling too well!

[kelly-p]

beer is toxic to humans but we keep drinking it

Do we need anymore proof that bears are smarter then people?

I once shut down over 30 baits in only 2 days by mixing in something new to give them a little change of diet. Everything I had read said that bears loved it. They did,,,,,,but only once. I ate some and found out why. Anymore nothing goes into the baits until after I have eaten it myself.

[Boar]

Yea i woulda never thought that bears could get sick like this, each one is different thou, with different tolerences i assume, their system is so geared for fattining up an survival, although the candy an pasteries we feed them are just empty calories, they know what they need to make it thru the winter, which is why the naturals always turns them from a site. just never thought a bear could connect the two, for instence, bears at site eating, wanders off an becomes sick an hour later a mile or more from bait site, an he makes the connection? More than once would be a learned behavior. But the first time is hard to believe a bear can put the two togehter. later baor

[CANOPY SAM]

Yep. Bad tummy ache. I don't feel so good....

[Random guy]

A few years back Kelly and I had some new magic stuff for baits. It smelled sweet, was sticky and had a consistency that would resist rain. It came with real chunks of berries in it and was for human consumption in our minds it was all good. We thought it was going to be the next great thing in our operation…not so. We would get one maybe two hits from a bear and it was the same story over several test baits. The bear would eat the new bait, get sick and vomit on the trail leaving the bait and never return. One particular bait a color phase returned a week later but would not touch anything close to the new sweet bait or even eat anything within six inches of it. We ended up scooping it all up and hauling it back off the baits. So I do believe bears get sick and it turns them off of a bait. It makes sense to me as many berry species, and a few plant species have evolved and thrived by becoming slightly toxic, animals learn what makes them sick and remember.

[TooTallTom]

...animals learn what makes them sick and remember.

Yep, and humans learn what makes us sick, and ignore that information.

I'm enjoying reading you bear hunters getting excited about the season. I have some bear hunters in my family, but my dad never has, so I never have. I'm curious, though, and would not be surprised to find myself over a bait pile at some point.

[Boar]

Becarfull Tom, Once you go black (bear) ya never go back, It'll grab a hold of ya an wont let go. Give it shot. Thanks for experience info jonny, I have yet to come across anything they dont eat, an I guesse i dont wanna either, I find this rather interesting. On what can make them sick. I have about 120 lbs of chocolate chreame cheese frosting an plan on melting to a goo an mixing oats an dog food an other things with it......I gota get some lunch......

[jkcmj]

I had found 2 55 gallon drums of white chocolate one season a few years back. It was always the 1st item eaten on the bait, and attracted a much wider variety of critters compared to our normal baits. Pine martins, sometimes 3 at a time, would be visible grabbing big chunks and running out with it. We even had a fischer on the trail cam with a chunk in his mouth. The bears always ate whatever amount we put on the pile, while picking and choosing through everything else. Pine martins were with us for weeks despite the regular diet of large chunks of White chocolate, so maybe white isn't as bad for them....

[Boar]

Hmmm thats interesting, maybe white chocolate dosent have an exorbant amount of theobromine. It seems that the closer the chocolate got to actual choco, like bakers chocolate an dark chocolate, the more of the toxin. white chocolate is probably even further away an has even less of the toxin. Now where can i get some white chocolate. I'll save the dark for coons. Thanks for that. boar

[SandPoint]

If I remember right,I don't think white chocolate is considered chocolate.So like boar said ,time to find some white chocolate.

[LightningBG]

If I remember right,I don't think white chocolate is considered chocolate.So like boar said ,time to find some white chocolate.

Because there are no cocoa solids in white chocolate, the Food and Drug Administration forbids manufacturers to use the word chocolate to describe their product, which is made of cocoa butter, milk solids and flavorings.

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Milk chocolate is very closely related to white: the milk solids and sweetness are similar - only the cocoa solids are missing. Their absence means there are only trace quantities in white chocolate of theobromine and caffeine, the stimulants in chocolate that cause allergic reactions in some people.

[Boar]

Cool thats good to know, thanks LBG. Yep its of in search of white chocolate. Boar