A survivalist suspected of killing a Pennsylvania trooper and wounding another three weeks ago is living on cans of tuna fish and noodles while eluding an intensive manhunt in the deep woods of the Pocono Mountains, officials said on Friday.

A search team came across a campsite this week that contained clothing, food and ammunition believed to have belonged to Eric Frein, a 31-year-old marksman suspected in the shooting, said Lieutenant ColonelGeorge Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police.

Frein is charged with murdering Corporal Bryon Dickson, 38, and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass, 31, outside a state police barracks in Blooming Grove on Sept. 12.

With the discovery of the cache, authorities are more convinced than ever that Frein is hiding in a five-square-mile area in the northeastern corner of the state, taking refuge in the state forests and game lands that blanket the region.

Bivens said he believed that losing the supplies would "make life more difficult" for the fugitive. He said he thought Frein left the items at the campsite because search teams were closing in on him.

As Frein's supplies dwindle, Bivens said he expected Frein to start searching for food in cabins and possibly restaurant dumpsters.

Serial bomber Eric Rudolph, after eluding police for years, was finally captured in May 2003 outside a ruralNorth Carolina grocery store when a police officer found him scrounging through trash.

In Pennsylvania, a core group of searchers has remained on the hunt for Frein for most of the three weeks, while most of the other trackers have rotated in and out, Bivens said.

Fresh troops are continually joining the search in the thick woods and rugged terrain that features caves, rock outcroppings and dense underbrush, Bivens said.

He said the vegetation was so thick searchers could "literally walk by someone in this terrain and not see them."

Bivens predicted the weather will soon work in favor of the search teams as cooler weather and rain strip trees of their heavy canopy. When leaves fall, he said, thermal imaging equipment can more readily detect heat signatures of people in the woods.