North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

An electric fence is probably the best option but I've heard of people
driving nails through ply-wood and placing the boards around fruit trees,
nails up,  so bears won't walk over the boards to the fruit trees.  Bears
only go after ripe fruit so I assume you could move boards tree to tree.  I
expect that bears would pull their paws away before any serious punctures
occurred,  having been a bare foot hippie for many years.  I was certainly
quick enough to avoid that kind of injury.