Part of a series of articles titled Picturing the Unseen.
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New Study Reveals How Campers Can Become Food Storage Champs
No one wins when wild animals are able to steal snacks. Recent research shows that social marketing—encouraging behavioral change for public benefit—can help national park campers hold on to their food.
By Sara Melena
About this article
This article was first published online on February 27, 2026, as part of the Picturing the Unseen series.
NPS / Katie Abrams
Every night, after other visitors have left, campers enjoy another side of national parks. They prepare dinner at campfires and roast marshmallows beneath the stars. In the morning, they eat breakfast to the sounds of birdsong. But if campers leave food out, even for a minute or two, birds or other wildlife could snatch it. This can spoil an otherwise relaxing experience, as human food can harm wildlife. And wild animals seeking food may harm people.
National Park Service regulations prohibit feeding wildlife. Park staff use education, enforcement, and physical things like food storage lockers (“bear boxes”) to encourage campers to comply. But these strategies aren’t always effective. That led researchers from two universities to develop and test a social marketing campaign to help increase compliance. They found that compliance was generally higher in areas with the campaign than in those without it. The researchers published their results in March 2025 in the journal Environmental Communication.
Effective Frameworks
The paper authors contend that common food storage compliance strategies such as education and enforcement have strengths. But they don’t necessarily employ behavior change frameworks, such as social marketing, that could increase their effectiveness. These frameworks share key features and address the complexity of seemingly simple actions. First, they focus on specific behaviors—like cleaning up crumbs or using food lockers—rather than broad behaviors like complying with food storage guidelines. Second, they use audience insights to define the target group. Third, they design approaches that make the behavior worth the effort. Fourth, they rely on multi-pronged strategies during implementation. Finally, they evaluate results to improve effectiveness.
"The goal isn't to write tickets."
The study authors demonstrate that implementing a social marketing campaign to target specific behaviors among specific audiences in park contexts can increase the number of people properly storing their food. The goal isn't to write tickets," explained Tyler Coleman, a wildlife biologist at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks at the time of the study. "The goal is to get people to store their food safely and not make it accessible for bears and other wildlife."
A Model of Behavioral Change
The researchers used the “COM-B” model of behavior change to develop their campaign to increase compliance with food storage regulations. "Models are great for behavior change, because they help you understand context in which people are making decisions,” said lead study author Katie Abrams. “This could be the physical environment. It could also be the people around them and their life experiences."
"Models are great...because they help you understand context in which people are making decisions."
The COM-B model theorizes that a behavior will occur when a person has the capability, opportunity, and motivation to act:
- Capability—an individual's psychological or physical capacity to engage in the desired behavior.
- Opportunity—external factors that enable or prompt the behavior.
- Motivation—internal factors that energize and direct the behavior.
The researchers built their campaign to address these three components.
NPS
Clean Campsite, Clear Conscience
The strategies the researchers used included giving campers packing and organizational tips in a pre-arrival email. These enhanced campers’ capability to properly store food. Signs and report cards encouraging certain behaviors gave campers opportunities to act. The campaign hook, “Clean Campsite, Clear Conscience” motivated campers by supporting their desire to have a relaxing vacation and avoid fines, feelings of guilt, or social embarrassment.
The researchers tested their campaign at campgrounds in Acadia National Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and Grand Teton National Park. They selected treatment and control areas from similar campgrounds within the same park. At the control sites, all signs, communication materials, and processes remained unchanged. At the treatment sites, the researchers covered or changed existing signs but didn’t add any signs.
"Clean Campsite, Clear Conscience” motivated campers by supporting their desire to have a relaxing vacation.
The control areas helped researchers tell whether their strategies (and not other factors like, say, time of day or weather) caused people’s behavior to change. If the same behaviors occurred at both kinds of sites, then it's unlikely those behaviors would be due to the changes at the treatment areas.
With campaign in place, the researchers discretely observed campsites twice per day. The first observation was midmorning. At this time, campers were likely to have left their sites to explore the park. Researchers could thus determine if campers properly secured their food while away. The second observation was around dinnertime to see how far campers strayed from their food.
Simple and Effective
The researchers collected over 5,000 observations across the four parks. They found that compliance in treatment areas was up to 13 percent higher than in control areas at three of the four sites. There was no significant change in compliance at the fourth site, possibly because compliance was already high there. As expected, the sites with existing bear boxes had higher levels of compliance at both the control and treatment sites than sites without bear boxes. "The campaign was super simple and very effective,” said Coleman. “We could see how effective this messaging is."
"The campaign was super simple and very effective."
Unintentional wildlife feeding is a persistent problem in national parks nationwide. But it doesn’t have to be. The researchers’ results show the value of designing a social marketing campaign to help campers make better food storage decisions. A similar approach rooted in a model of behavioral change could help park managers tackle other problems too. All while offering visitors safer, happier park experiences.
About the author
Sara Melena is an education specialist with the National Park Service’s Natural Resource Office of Communications. Image courtesy of Sara Melena.
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Cite this article
Melena, Sara. 2026. “New Study Reveals How Campers Can Become Food Storage Champs.” National Park Service, February 27, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/psv40n1_new-study-reveals-how-campers-can-become-food-storage-champs.htm
Last updated: March 2, 2026