The trash can’s opening lever sat beneath a metal guard, with space for human fingers but not a bear’s paw. Kobuk got his claws underneath anyway, then twisted his body until he could work the lever and open the lid, journalist Alex Davies recounts in an excerpt from Kobuk the Destroyer.
That is one of the stranger quality-control stories from the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana. Manufacturers send coolers, garbage cans and food containers to the facility, where captive grizzlies test the designs by trying to reach food inside. Kobuk’s skill at defeating them earned him his “Destroyer” nickname from the manufacturers, according to Davies.
The resulting destruction has a serious purpose, but watching a bear take on a supposedly tough container is a pretty good introduction to the job. Great Big Story’s short film visits the program, and the center still links to it as a look at the bears at work.
The program is getting another look through journalist Alex Davies’s new book, Kobuk the Destroyer: And Other Tales from the Wild, Unseen World of Test Engineering. Science Friday featured Davies on October 22. The linked film is an older visit, not footage newly released with the book.
The clock only counts when the bear gets to work
Under the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee’s 2026 testing protocol, staff inspect products for hazards before putting food or scented bait inside. They can also apply attractants such as honey, peanut butter or fish oil around vulnerable seams and latches.
The crucial measurement is 60 minutes of bear contact time. Biting, clawing, crushing and flipping count. Excessive licking does not, and the clock stops if a bear takes the product into water. Several bears may work on the same container. This is accumulated active testing, not simply leaving a cooler in an enclosure for an hour.
The process can end when a container is breached, reaches the required contact time, or the bears lose interest. Some products can then undergo a technical evaluation. Staff record the tests and document damage, giving manufacturers a much more specific verdict than a pile of wrecked plastic.
Strength is only part of the test
Davies reports that the center’s testing program began in 2001 after mechanical tests proved inadequate. Dropped weights and a simulated tooth could reproduce force, but they could not reproduce a bear looking for another way in.
Kobuk’s encounter with the guarded lever makes that difference concrete. A design has to resist the animal’s problem-solving as well as its strength.
A failed container can help protect wild bears
The center explains the stakes: bears that learn to associate people with food can become dangerous and end up killed or permanently in captivity. A better container helps prevent that lesson from being learned. Failed designs can be changed and tested again.
Passing does not make a product bear-proof. The IGBC warns that certification is no guarantee against a future breach, and correct use still matters. An unlocked cooler is not bear-resistant simply because it carries a label.
The hoped-for result is simple: the wild bear moves on without discovering that someone’s garbage is an easy meal. Getting there may require a captive grizzly to find the flaw first.
Featured photograph: lwolfartist, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, July 24, 2023.
