I was camping many years ago with a friend. We had two separate tents. He left some food in his. When we returned from a day-long hike, his tent was destroyed, mine untouched about ten feet away.
I have a similar story. Went on a day hike with a new acquaintance at Holden, Washington in the 70s. He left his heavy backpack behind while I took my much smaller daypack with me. When we got back a couple hours later, his backpack was FULL of chipmunks eating all of his food. They all popped up when they heard us approach and all took off like scalded cats out of that pack. Funniest thing I ever saw! It was like watching Chip and Dale and all their friends heading for the hills.
It was the very first day of the guy’s backcountry outing — I never did learn what he did for food.
Same story here, although my friend was sleeping in the tent when the bear ripped it open and made off with the cooler containing bacon.
Growing up in the mountains, we either learned from experience the hard way or were taught what not to do in advance. Camping and the do’s and don’ts were a part of outdoor school in 6th grade back then. Orienteering, firearms shooting, first aid, edible wild plants, all that goodness they won’t teach now for liability reasons and/or that’ll get you fired and jailed for nowadays. It was a good primer for when you went on backpacking and camping jamborees in Boy Scouts a couple years down the road. And Mr. Skunk De Pew is not a fella you want to irritate up close. We had our family mutt as a kid who would go off on her little all-day ‘let’s see what I can chase down’ sessions there on the ridges, and more than once she came home after cornering a skunk. She usually spent a few days sleeping in the basement until she had enough baths to smell fragrant but tolerable, and come back upstairs. (FYI: milk and tomato juice baths to get the stank off from a skunk spraying are old wives’ tales. It’s like dye from the husk of a freshly dropped walnut or the stalk berries from an Indian paint brush - it’s just plain gotta wear itself off. It all gets into the pores of your skin.)