Missing Trackables-Part 02, Circumstances

[+shellbadger]

In this post I will detail the circumstances under which my trackables went missing, or became inactive.  As much as anything, the documenting of it has been a study in human behavior. Our game has no formal rules and no accountability, and we humans do not exhibit predictable behavior without reinforcement.

 

To be clear, most cachers precisely document their caching activities.  However, there are nearly as many who don’t. For example, in the log menu, the retrieve, grab and discover options are used interchangeably by some cachers. Other cachers use the write-note option for all transactions. Some other cachers move trackables without logs at either end, while still others apparently guess at log dates and cache locations, well after the fact. The point being, much interpretation was required to assemble the table below. Furthermore, I accepted actions and dates as recorded, although I know many of them cannot be true. Thus, the classification and results in the table below suggest a tidiness to the data that is perhaps unwarranted.

 

First however, my definition of missing doesn’t necessarily mean a trackable vanished without a trace. That is undeniably the case for most of them, as they disappeared from an active container without benefit of any kind of log. Trackables lost in vanished or destroyed containers are treated missing as well.  My definition also includes trackables that were logged out of a container, and possibly visited other caches, but eventually ceased to travel, while remaining in possession of the cacher.  These trackables are not strictly missing, but they might as well be, since their traveling days are done.

 

As for retrieving pertinent data for this analysis, an unusual bit of foresight was a real bonus. When cataloging my trackables, I linked the tracking code on the spreadsheet to the trackable homepage, enabling me to bypass a multi-step search for the homepage using the tracking or ID numbers.  Once on the homepage, I read every log from the last drop-off to the very last log, if any. After gathering the details I wanted, I followed the link from that page to home page of the last known cache, where I extracted even more information.

 

Refer to the table to see my classification and analysis of how my trackables went missing. There is high certainty with the first level of the classification, Cacher Losses versus Cache-and-Contents losses. It was basically a yes/no choice as to whether or not the trackable was on the cache inventory when it was lost. If it was not in the cache, it was assumed to have been retrieved by someone.

 

Cacher Losses. Cacher losses were over 95% of the total, with nearly 54% just disappearing from an active cache without a log of any kind. An active cache is one having logged visits immediately after the trackable drop. Occasionally there is a comment in the cache log that a trackable was retrieved, but there is no way of knowing if the trackable was mine.

 

Only 1% of the trackables were lost at an event where they were formally released.  I confess to being very surprised by this low percentage. These data and recent experiences have finally relieved me of a long-held bias against trackables at events. Many years ago, when I still naively believed all my trackables had a future, several of my earliest travel bugs went missing at a single mega event in Austin…I was stunned that such a thing could happen at a gathering of committed geocachers. Trackables do disappear at events, but not nearly at the rate they do from unobserved containers

 

I was also surprised by the high percentage (39%) of trackables that were logged out of caches and simply held by cachers for 3-10 years. I will do a detailed accounting of this occurrence at a later time, but for now I will state that the holders are not all newbies, nor are they all non-premium members. A quick count shows slightly over 900 different cachers are holding a single trackable, whereas another 50+ cachers are holding 2-11 trackables. A good many of the cachers holding multiples bugs are my fellow TXGA members.

 

The small number of unclassified retrievals could probably be included with held bugs. They were instances when the trackable retrieval date did not did not show a corresponding visit to the stated cache by the cacher, plus or minus two weeks. There several explanations, but the logical one is the increasingly common practice of logging the retrieval and drop at same time, on the drop date.

 

A total of nine lost trackable is almost certainly less than the actual number.  However, these are the only ones reported to me, usually with profuse apologies. I suspect that some number of lost bugs, and collected bugs for that matter, are concealed by performing bogus drops to remove them from cacher inventories.

 

The one retired trackable is the only one of 25 released that lasted long enough to accomplish the specific mission. It arrived in my granddaughter’s hands, from Lubbock to Houston, by way of Hong Kong.

 

Cache Losses. Compared to cacher losses, cache-and-contents losses were relative minor at 4.4%. The largest contributor to these trackable losses were in caches that were either vandalized (muggled) or neglected by the cache owners and archived by reviewers. I originally wanted to sort this collection into the two categories because, at the extremes, they are easily identified. I gave up when it became clear that there were caches that might have been both vandalized and neglected, and then archived. I marvel at the owners who doggedly replace muggled caches.

 

The new construction losses are from human agencies who unwittingly destroy a cache and/or its hiding place. This includes clearing vacant lots, mowing rights-of-way, bridge and guardrail repairs and fence construction. Guardrail destruction by vehicles is included here because the guardrail must be repaired. I have many guardrail caches and the frequency of guardrail damage it has been a revelation. Most of the time I have been able to recover the container.

 

There were five of my trackables lost in caches from natural disasters. Two were from floods, two were from brush fires and one was from a tornado.

 

Three containers and resident trackables were lost to administrative removals. Examples are caches placed on property without permission and caches judged by park authorities to be in hazardous locations. None of these trackables went back into circulation.

 

Finally, let me say that if someone else were to repeat this project with the same missing trackable pool, it is unlikely they would arrive at the same numbers. There is just too much interpretation required. That said, I am certain there would not be differences by orders-of-magnitude. I will stand by an approximate 95% and 5% split between cacher and cache losses, and an approximate 54% and 40% losses from unlogged retrievals versus logged retrievals.

Edited May 17, 2023 by shellbadger

[Darwin473]

I too find these numbers surprising. Though I'm slightly biased as we have a lot of bushfires out here in Australia, and a lot of rural caches are claimed by the flames. Mind you, this is purely anecdotal from a few cache losses that I've seen here, with way to small a sample size to be able to quantify "a lot"!