I don't know of a canister that has not failed...including Bear Vault and Garcia. The difference has been the NP and FS have bent over backwards for the hard canister manufactures to rectify flaws. They have not cut Ursack any slack.
I'm back. Where do you get this stuff?? It is incredibly rare for any of the hard sided canisters to fail. I'm not aware of a single failure (in, what?, 20 years) of the Garcia. One of the others had a few failures (< 6) because of the epoxy they used but was quickly fixed. The problems, though, have not been a failure of design or materials but only of a very few (literally a handful) in thousands and thousands of canisters out there.
That's not been the case with the Ursack though. It's inherent in the materials and design so far. Maybe someday they'll find the right combination but,again, the photo shows they haven't.
EDIT: OK. One last thing. As I referred to in my first post, the whole thing is about food rewards -- keeping the bear from thinking there's any hope of getting food from whatever system is being used (box, hanging, canister, ursack etc.). This is what creates truly wild bears. Only hard side canisters or bear boxes do this. I have watched bears walk right by canisters and boxes because they know they can't get into them. Their behavior has changed (e.g. in Kearsarge/Bubbs/Woods) as a direct result of people carrying and using the dreaded canisters (thanks!!). If you read the link to the Ursack testimonials, you'll see this is not they case. Bears keep trying to break into them. Mostly they work but the bears are NOT being trained to not bother with human food and campsites. That's another reason NPS and USFS don't want them. It's not some dark conspiracy. They just don't work for what's necessary to move bears to nuts and berries (and the occasional fawn...).
g.
