Let's be clear, here; Sweet Little Mama-Bear there would kill and eat you, and everybody you know and love if she had the chance.

Nope. All bears are my friends. They instantly realize I'm cool and I just want to bat some salmon with them.

I saw on the Discovery Channel (or some channel like that) some guy who really wanted to get up close and personal with bears.

He designed an "Anti-Bear Suit" -- basically full-body kevlar armor and chainmal with some big steel plates for added protection in some places -- just so he could go pet bears.

I don't know what my point is, exactly, except that I'd mention some guy spent ten thousand dollars of his own jack building an Anti-Bear Suit.

I once owned an Anti-Bear Suit myself. I called it "a car."

Cute bears!

That is great to hear, Ace. Now you and Andy have something in common. :)

Wow! Check out the seething tantrums going on over at DU! Buy stock in blood pressure medication now...

"I just want to bat some salmon with them"

Is that some kind of euphemism? If it is, than that's disgusting. I guess it depends on what it means.

I saw that jackass with the anti-near suit. I don't think he ever actually tried it around bears. Must've figured he might get hurt.

But who are you really talking about when you say "filthy, shiftless, layabouts..."?

What about the guy who loved bears so much that he and his girlfriend decided to hang out with some brown (kodiak) bears on an Alaskan island a couple years back?

The bears used his tent stays as toothpicks to get the man (and woman) flesh from their teeth.

(not really, but hte bears did eat him and his chick entirely. no bodies ever found)

Yeah, bears LOVE us.

ace,

A car ain't even gonna come close to protecting you. But the guy with the bear suit might lend it to you. I saw him testing it out on the Discovery channel by having his friend run into him with a pickup going about 30 mph. The guy wasn't even affected.

check it out: http://www.nfb.ca/grizzly/

We're here!
We're queer!
And we don't want anymore bears!

Hob: Whoa, I heard about that camper eating incident and it should be pointed out that the animals involved were troubled bears, all the product of harsh, broken-cave environments (about which our federal gov. doesn't seem to give a damn - damn you BUSH!)

Before you go filling up comment threads giving all bears a bad name, you'd do well to remember there is no such thing as a bad bear, only bears we've taught to do bad things - bears we've let slip through the cracks.

Let's bait the area around the bears with a couple of filet o'salmon de-lites and send in O'Chub in the suit.

1) IIRC, polar bears are the one animal on earth that actively hunts man (meaning if they had the choice between a seal and a person, they'd choose the human). This is in opposition to other animals that kill humans, like sharks (who, it's believed, usually mistake the humans for seals) or lions (who I think do it for territoriality purposes or just the delight of killing).

So, yeah, fuck 'em.

2) All the ANWR drilling will take place in an area and time of the year when the drilling footprint will be a frigid, pereptually dark hell-hole., where hardly any bears (IF ANY AT ALL) will be.

Oh, pshaw, this is such the manufactured conflict. Everyone knows that polar bears only live in Antarctica.

/Downtown Lad
//He's not really that stupid
///except about gay marriage

Polar bears aren't even real bears.

They're just gigantic weasels.

When a bear sees an oil derrick, he goes around it and never gives it another thought.

When Democrats see an oil derrick, they are stopped dead in their tracks. They can't eat, and they can't reproduce.

More proof that bears are smarter than Democrats.

They're just gigantic weasels.

Aren't all bears?

Oh, pshaw, this is such the manufactured conflict. Everyone knows that polar bears only live in Antarctica.

Nope, sorry. Try again.

You get one more guess. I have faith in you!

No kidding the bears (or any other wildlife up there) don't freak out at the sight of a rig, gathering facility, or plant, or pipe, etc. Bears, Musk Oxen, and Moose continually wander through Deadhorse (the city, well town, there at Prudhoe Bay) all through the year with never any mind for us human types. Or our equipment.
I work up there and have for several years now. It is an INCREDIBLE place. No where else in the world do humans and animals live and work in such close proximity to one another.
To work there is a treat, and it is of the UTMOST importance to all of us up there to keep our work environment clean, safe and conducive to the survivability of not just our jobs, but where we work and what we work around.
I love my job, the unique work environment I have, and I love that on any given day I get to see more of nature, ACTUAL nature, as in IN THE WILD, then 95% of any patchouli smelling, jesus-sandal-wearing, Forest-fairy Eco-elf ever even dreams of seeing.

Polar bears are honking big, really mean, typically eat seals - or any other thing unfortunate enough to be in front of the bear when it is hungry (including people) and not the kind of thing you want to mess with. During winter (AKA The drilling season) the bears will be off on the ice hunting far away from the drilling site. During the summer they'll be slaughtering caribou in and around the deserted drilling rigs. Ace - Polar bears generally don't eat salmon b'cuz the salmon runs are much further south than their usual range - but they will eat anything else they want.

We've been drilling for years and it has not hurt the polar bears, and the arctic caribou herd (the one in the area of the slope that is currently producing oil, not the porcupine herd that has ANWR as part of its range) has increased in size during the last 20 years.

BTW Polar bears are considered a problem by the inupiats and they did at one time actively kill them with ingeneous traps made of baleen (the gum tissue from whales that they use to strain krill) rolled into a ball, covered with caribou fat and frozen that way. Baleen normally is in a strip about four to six feet long. The bear would eat the ball, the ice would melt in the bear's stomach, and the baleen would rupture the beasties internal organs. Nice huh?

"polar bears only live in Antarctica"

Heh

Good thing you added your conciliatory disclaimer at the end. As our cousins across the pond would say: Those bears'd do you a treat, mate.

Well, not even a Seawolf-class nuclear submarine scares a polar bear.

http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/default.asp?target=bear_sub1.htm

We are to believe that these animals who have adapted to the most severe climate on Earth cannot bear (sorry for the pun) to see, hear or smell a pipeline or drilling rig?

Lefties need to realize that not every species is bent on embracing victimization.

If any of the oil workers get killed by a bear, it'll definitely be "bears, why do they hate us?" all over the MSM.