Common Folk Wisdom Tip #327: Bear Attacks

Let's try to have a post that doesn't reference the infamous "Four Words Flap" that just will not die. I swear to God, it's like a Police song: No ending, just a constant repetition of the chorus until the tape in the studio ran out. ROXXXXXXANNE! PUT ON THE RED LIGHT!

Anyway, I wanted to share a thought I had about bear attacks. I watch a LOT of Discovery Channel, and one of my first cousins moved to Alaska back in '91 for postgraduate work in biology. Did she work with bears? No, apparently she arrived late and all the bear positions were snapped up early, so she ended up studying hibernation in ground squirrels. Now don't get me wrong here; bears are pretty freakin' vicious, but there's NOTHING that will make you crap your underoos like being jumped by a cornered ground squirrel. Vicious little bastards.

Back to my point here (AND YES, I do have one): How a person should respond to a bear attack depends on which type of bear is attacking you. In North America, we have Polar bears, Black bears and Brown bears. Grizzly bears are a subset of browns, so I'll just include them in with the Browns.

The vast majority of attacks on hikers by Brown bears occur because the bear feels that the human is invading its territory. Either the hiker walks up on a bear using a trail, or he/she gets between momma bear & her cubs. These attacks usually only last until the bear determines that the person is no longer a threat. Occasionally the bear might go ahead and eat the person, but most of the time it will just maul them and then go on its way.

Attacks on people by black bears are fairly rare. Black bears usually react to humans by running away, which is probably best for both parties. There's a chance that momma black bear MIGHT attack a person who gets too close to her cubs, but most of the time they will simply call to the cubs and retreat. When a black bear DOES attack a person, the odds are that it doesn't fear people and it wants to see what "long pork" tastes like.

Polar bears? Nasty, brutish animals. In their environment, anything that moves is prey. If you're attacked by a polar bear, you can be sure that if you passively wait for it to stop mauling you, you're going to end up as part of several bear bowel movements scattered across the tundra. Polar bears don't just attack people when they're startled; they actively stalk people when they have the chance.

You might be asking yourself right now: "Russ, what's your freakin' point?"

Well, how you respond to bear attacks is a guide on how you should respond to criticism from the mainstream media.

If you're a conservative, then you can be 99.7% sure that the media is made up of Polar bears. You're nothing more than meat to them, and they'll keep coming until one of you is dead.

If you're a moderate Republican who thinks that bipartisanship is the best thing since sliced bread, then the media is a Brown bear. They'll mess you up bad, and they might even eat you if they need a meal, but they won't actively stalk you unless you do something to provoke them.....like running for President or voting against the Porkulus package.

If you're a Democrat or a liberal Republican, then the media is a Black bear. Attacks will be rare, but when they DO happen they'll be fatal. Gov. Blago knows what a Black bear attack feels like.

discuss amongst yourselves

posted by Russ from Winterset at 10:52 AM

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