Yes they seem to be disappearing.  However this has long been the case.  I think Steve from Team Tierra Buena perhaps put it best (very loosely quoted cause I can't remember it exactly), Travel Bugs are like Sea Turtles, many are hatched and go toward their goals but only a few survive and return or actually make their goals - Steve probably remembers it a lot better than I do, and perhaps will more accurately tell us his quote.

I think lately, just looking around up here that there is a certain element out there that just goes to caches that have TB's in them and remove them...probably putting them up in as a little trophy shelf.

My brother in Michigan had feces put into one of his caches...it was one you had to SNOWSHOE into in the winter.  We recently found a cache up here that was the size of a large prescription bottle that was filled with URINE.  Here is the log.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=a6ac676f-96b9-485f-8da6-670ef76caa9b

So the part you have put in about the Mad Crapper doesn't surprise me.

One thing that I have done with some of my TB losses is to re-issue TB's under the lost TB's Copy Tag.  I make sure they are truly gone...haven't had a log for some time.  In fact I just re-released a couple this last week which I was certain are truly missing.  they both had very short lives when they were released in Arizona.  I clearly put on the web page that these are copy tags...so as not to upset the "purists" out there.  That way I don't have to buy more tags.  Some examples:

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=3868
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=5549
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=4771
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=21580

That said, I have had TB's turn up after over a year being missing.  So you never know.

Anyway, that is an alternative that you can do with your TB's...should you desire to do so.

Joe
TeamBlunder
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Scott Wood 
  To: listserv@azgeocaching.com 
  Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 10:44 AM
  Subject: [Az-Geocaching] Another missing bug


  I had another bug go missing.  I wanted to post the message I received 
  about it to show what others are going though.

  --