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.
--
(text/plain)