Camping with WVO (Bears)

[DoubleMonk]

I too wonder about Veg and bears. I once heard long long ago that some forestry department in the US experimented with Veg in their field trucks. It was said there were more bear sightings and attracted bears. I can't remember who told me, or how long ago that was, but since I always wondered if it were true. Could be an urban legend. Though, I often jokingly say, that when I have my Vegi Rig I'll have a string of bears following me as I putter through the bush.

My brother back East hunts bears using buckets of Sweet Smelling Tim Horton's Donut Oil. Then again, he might have only ever got one in his life. Not sure how well it works. I can say that during all my time working in the bush, the majority of I have seen, have been in the neighbourhoods around Nelson. I feel safer in a tent in the bush than in the back yard. The far back wild bears worry me less then those closer to human dwellings.

When it comes to baiting bears with oil, it's done over a long period of time. The bears that come into town have developed a taste for compost and fruit trees and keep coming back, as is the idea with baiting. In the bush they most often have their staples and are not familiar with man produced veg. I would strongly avoid refuelling and dripping oil in the same camping spot too often. All Vegi oil should come out of the bush and never left at a cabin or camping spot unattended for extend periods of time. As an after thought, I think it's wise to discourage hunters from using oil as bait as to protect the WVO comunity.

Those are my thoughts and will be my practice.

[FalcoColumbarius]

There are two things that I don't like about WVO in the toolies:

• 1/ the Pied Piper of Hamlin effect &
  2/ the lack of calories one gets in veggie oil.

With vegetable oil not having as many calories as dino diesel, you get less kilometres per litre. It's one thing to drive around town on WVO ~ you help promote the fast food industry, you are never far away from a refill and the price is really good. I added twenty litres of refined WVO to roughly forty litres of dino diesel and drove mainly open highway from Horseshoe Bay to Tsawwassen, Duke Point to Campbell River. I should have been getting eleven or twelve kilometres per litre but instead I was getting five and an half.

This is my only experience with WVO but I have met with other drivers running WVO systems, both Delica and Non Delica, and have established that the lack of calories decreases mileage.

My concern is if one goes deep into the toolies expecting to get X amount of kilometres per tank, how many people have thought this out? I think that many people do not keep track of their mileage because it is not costing them very much money to run WVO.

Then once you have run out of fuel and are in the middle of bear & cat infested wilderness, then what?

Falco.

[Jordan]

I can't notice much of a difference in economy or power except on an old filter. I centrifuge my oil into a fine gold and usually take around 200l with me. I have been camping in Oregon and Washington not taking extra precautions but keeping things clean. If I go anywhere concerning I will cut it with diesel to take away the smell.

In the attached study biodiesel isn't an attractant so another option is to put my heater on a switch and run bio in both tanks.

Biodiesel-bear-study.pdf

(466.38 KiB) Downloaded 599 times

[BCDelica]

There are two things that I don't like about WVO in the toolies:

• 1/ the Pied Piper of Hamlin effect &
  2/ the lack of calories one gets in veggie oil.

With vegetable oil not having as many calories as dino diesel, you get less kilometres per litre. It's one thing to drive around town on WVO ~ you help promote the fast food industry, you are never far away from a refill and the price is really good. I added twenty litres of refined WVO to roughly forty litres of dino diesel and drove mainly open highway from Horseshoe Bay to Tsawwassen, Duke Point to Campbell River. I should have been getting eleven or twelve kilometres per litre but instead I was getting five and an half.

This is my only experience with WVO but I have met with other drivers running WVO systems, both Delica and Non Delica, and have established that the lack of calories decreases mileage.

My concern is if one goes deep into the toolies expecting to get X amount of kilometres per tank, how many people have thought this out? I think that many people do not keep track of their mileage because it is not costing them very much money to run WVO.

Then once you have run out of fuel and are in the middle of bear & cat infested wilderness, then what?

Falco.

More filling, less fatting... We got about 7 to 9 on WVO the odd time I measured, waste motor oil was the same, or better, then dino.

Hi Falco, normal WVO conversions have an extra tank, or two, so you can always switch to the dino stuff when low. Plus it never hurts to carry any extra spare fuel when it costs so little, and you need WVO for starting the camp fire too.

Where the real fun begins is when you run into someone in the backcountry out or low of fuel and all you can offer them is veggie (and diesel). First time this happened was finding a friend in his newly lifted Zuki, whom didn't take into account the effect on gas mileage with much bigger tires (he was old enough to know better, the successful biznessman he is). His wife, there great friends still, said the first words out of his mouth when he saw us, come around a corner far from town, was "F*** it's Kevin, sh**".

At least we all had fun driving out together.