We picked a full tree of crab apples today. Let me explain why fruit trees are SO attractive to bears. A thread with weights and calories.

This is the tree. There are hundreds of trees like this in mountain communities that overlap with bear habitat. This isn’t even a particularly productive tree. It hadn’t been picked this year yet, and was possibly a bear attractant so we volunteered to pick it. #bearsmart

This is the haul. You can see why it would be appealing to an animal who is only active for 6 months a year and needs to live for 12. #hibernationproblems. Gaining fat is life. And there are pounds and pounds of sugar in here.

So, how many calories is this?

I had to weigh it. Data is life for me as a scientist and as someone with a very inquisitive mind.

93 lbs Minus the tarp, bucket, and beaner, it is 83 lbs. Or 37.7 Kg.

Now let’s work out the calories and sugar. 1 Kg of apples has 520 calories and 104g sugar.

So we have 19,618 calories and 3.92 kg (or 8.6 lbs) of sugar.

This is the haul from one very standard fruit tree. We picked in <20 minutes. Nearly 20,000 calories and 9 lbs of sugar. Wow. So glad that @_BCCOS are out patrolling for bear attractants—working to keep people and bears safe.

Please pick your fruit trees or consider replacing