BEARSCARE

As Bearscare.org’s fourth anniversary approaches, I feel it’s time to offer a little clarification on the nature of the Honeybear, a rogue species of which little is known; the very existence of the Honeybear was a significant motivation when I founded this site and also The National Journal of Ursalography, the only periodical dedicated to the scientific study of bears and sometimes other animals.

Many people ask me if there’s any (non-taxonomical) relationship between the Honeybear and the honey badger, especially since the airing of “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger” (see below) by a fellow zoographer known only as Randall. The answer is a resounding NO. The honey badger deserves myriads of respect in its own right, but its notoriety arises from different characteristics than the Honeybear. The honey badger, pictured below in Fig. 1, is known to enjoy eating anything which can feel pain. It also has a sweet tooth (and can you blame it?), so locals began referring to Mellivora capensis by its more commonly known name.

In contrast, “the fact is that the Honeybear’s name comes exclusively from the color of its fur,” says Doug Gilmore, a Delaware park ranger turned naturalist and consultant to the Delaware Department of Parks and Wildlife. He goes on, “yes, we have found evidence that they do consume honey in that they eat the entire hive. The disorderly buzzing attracts them and they don’t turn down the opportunity to get a significant amount of protein from the bees, insoluble fiber from the hive walls and simple carbohydrates from the honey. In consuming honey, though, unlike the honey badger, the Honeybear actually eats the hive whole. Picture a someone picking oranges from an orange tree. It’s like that, except there’s only one orange and it’s very big and full of angry bees and honey.

“Sadly, we’ve noticed that more often than not, when a Delaware beekeeper goes missing, his hives do too. And, when we investigate, we find the telltale signs of a Honeybear attack that the police usually miss. You can’t fault them, though, since Honeybears leave very little behind. Usually there’s just some faint claw marks on nearby trees and a tuft of honey-colored fur or two. Blood is rare, as the Honeybear needs all the iron it can get. We don’t know whether the Honeybear smells the human prey first or whether it’s the incessant buzzing, but we do know it’s not the honey itself which attracts the bear.”

I’ve also been asked which animal is more vicious and who would win if a Honeybear  (see Fig. 2) were to fight a honey badger. Unfortunately, due to recent “laws”, such a matchup is illegal in most parts of the US, including Delaware, the only state where Honeybears are found. Furthermore, a Honeybear has never been successfully captured, much less transferred across state lines for any reason, whether legitimate or not. That said, it’s my opinion that a honey badger would have a very difficult time besting a Honeybear. Although the honey badger is very resilient, I believe that the Honeybear’s kill move–grasping the victim in its powerful jaws and shaking it violently at over 70 hertz–would ultimately subdue it. There’s a chance the honey badger could scurry into another animal’s borrow, if one were to be nearby, and wait out the confrontation, though. We know that honeybears will pursue new prey after several minutes of being unable to reach an animal. However, even just considering height and weight ratios, I would be very surprised to hear of a decisive win by a honey badger in a matchup.

The Hybrid Death Snake (HDS) is not actually a snake. It certainly contains DNA from the deadliest snakes on the planet, but it’s much more.

In 1994, NATO officials approved a program to create a weapon unlike any other in history: a living weapon. Henri deFluche, an unofficial spokesman for the NATO Exotic Weapons Directorate, states, “we knew bombs were not enough. Bombs kill instantly rather than systematically. If you survive the blast, that’s it. The Hybrid Death Snake is different.”

Derived from DNA of the — sit down for this one — Cobra, Rattlesnake, Komodo Dragon, Great White Shark, Brown Bear, Hippopotamus, Rat, Human, Tortoise, Pit Viper and Lion, the HDS is the most dangerous animal in the world. It is believed that a computer chip embedded at birth in each individual’s brain allows NATO control, but there have been no published studies establishing the efficacy of such a device.

There are no photographs of the HDS publicly available, but an artist’s impression shows a scaly creature with six burly legs, cats’ eyes and a jaw, fitted with appropriate fangs, sufficient to eat even larger-than-average men. Keep an eye out.

14 January 2010

Yesterday, a hippo escaped the Montenegro National Zoo (MNZ). Heavy rains had flooded the zoo and water levels rose above cage walls, allowing Nikica the hippo to swim to his destiny.

“I will not the make a kill,” remarked Nikoli Sregev, NMZ central administrator. “The hippo…the gentle creature…eat a rat or mini bird. We make this kill? Unaccept.”

Generally, hippos shouldn’t be approached, though some suggest that they are among the gentler cow derivatives. Hippopotami will kill humans, but they usually have good reason; bulls have traditionally felt threatened by encroaching hominids, and this legacy still stands. Please, keep a conservative distance when hippo-gazing.

I think that, in general, this website is fairly “clean”. This is no accident; the world out there is full of depravity and I prefer for my readers to not have to worry about finding it here. Unfortunately, however, I story came to my attention about which it would be irresponsible for me not to write. I apologize if I shock anyone, and parents or anyone who is easily offended are hereby advised to leave this website and look at something else animal-related.

Last week, Deedee Foster of Ola, Arkansas, was making her evening rounds at her farm. As she approached the last barn, she, “immediately felt uneasy,” Mrs. Foster explained. “It’s a good thing I carry the gun when I do my rounds. Bud’s been laid up with a bum leg for 17 years now and I learned long ago to carry protection. I’ve scared away teenagers, pumas, bears and hobos, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” What Mrs. Foster saw was a man, later identified as Duke Sherwood, a local fire hydrant technician, engaging in an obscene act with one of Foster’s horses. “Oh, he stopped right away. I called the police and veterinarian. I knew if Beebe got elected things like this would start happening!” Gov. Mark Beebe (D) could not be reached for comment, but a spokesman assured members of the press that he was disgusted with the story and does not condone “that sort of thing”.

Deedee Foster standing guard over her horse, Pups

According to the International Horse Action and Protection Alliance (IHAPA), inappropriate horse related events have been on the rise in recent months. “You know, when the economy tanks, people have less money to do the things they want to do. They go looking for cheap thrills,” explained Robin Berkhalter, IHAPA public relations director. IHAPA was formed in during the 1930s due to a rash of similar offenses.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,535400,00.html

While I was conducting Walrus related research, I came upone this film strip of a Walrus playing a saxaphone along side a human being. I had no idea they were this intelligent.

Also, here’s a video of a mother walrus and a baby walrus. It is a little known fact that walruses and bears have a mutually respectful relationship. Although they are competitors for food, it is a friendly rivalry. Walruses and bears have even been observed sharing resources during particulaly cold or sparse winters.

…And it isn’t a great ape.

Yesterday, the National Zoological Society, NZS, released shocking results from a recent study on intelligence in aquatic life. Organisms of the family Phocoenidae, more commonly known as porpoises (see below), according to the NZS, actually surpass human intelligence in many aspects of their complex lives. Up until now, humans have been assumed to be the smartest creatures on planet Earth; we were thought to be the only animals capable of analytical thought and are famous not only for being bipedal, but also our ability to swim and fly (with airplanes/balloons). All that has changed.

Human and Porpoise Attempting to Communicate

Like many animals (such as the Virginia Jellyfish), the porpoise has enjoyed a relatively low profile. The scientific community, especially when it comes to non-human intelligence, tends to prefer more “flashy” animals, such as chimpanzees and octopi. Hence, the porpoise, for thousands of years, has lived a highly ordered and complex life without human meddling. The NZS’s Aquatic Mammal  Task Force (AMTF), however, has been taking a closer look at porpoises in recent months thanks to stimulus money received from the Obama administration.

“Yeah, we got the call back in April. They said they could give us $750k, but we needed to submit a proposal,” remarked Joe “Joey” Chambers, a project manager at AMTF. “We said we’d draw something up right away and called a meeting to hash out some ideas. One of our interns, Kevin Schultz, brought up Phocoenidae; we asked him why, and he said, ‘why not?’ So, we went with it. Turns out the little buggers are smart.”

Actually, according to the groundbreaking paper publsihed in Proceedings from the 32nd Aquatic Mammal Conference, porpoises have, for all intents and purposes, replicated our success in mathematics, physics and even the arts. Although their means of expression are entirely different, observations of their hunting, social, recreational and family interactions have confirmed that humans are no longer the smartest animals on Planet Earth.

“It turns out the whales use nonlinear differential equations, even high order ones, to predict the movements of large schools of prey,” replied Kevin Schultz. We later learned that he had not been notified that the study actually had been conducted on porpoises at the time of the interview. Mr Schultz continued, “the average porpoise can pinpoint the exact location of an individual mackeral with about 200 cubic feet, about the size of a bathtub. And that’s astonishing.”

Although no human casualties have been attributed to porpoises, fishermen have observed individual porpoises swimming along side fishing boats, splashing their tail fins in patterns consistent with Morse Code, “though of course the letters were off–they’ve never learned our code, but they have they’re own. I never put two and two together, but now it makes perfect sense,” said an unidentified fisherman disembarking. “They were trying to communicate with us and we didn’t even know it.”

These results have already changed human history. Although rioting has been minimal and concentrated mostly in rural regions of the United States and several European countries, we expect extreme reactions worldwide to increase. “We just care about the science–doing it and reporting it,” said Joey Chambers, “and I’m sorry if people don’t like it. We can’t lie and we can’t keep quiet.”

Today, my wife and I were in a local  pet store looking for inspirational reading and weight loss supplements for our chubby cat, Skittles, when I came across a cage labeled “Honey bears”. You can imagine my surprise; they have been selling juvenile Honeybears along side regular hamsters and mice! I don’t know what sicko from Delaware would be supplying major pet stores WITH BEARS but bringing him/her to justice is another story. Naturally, I recognized the threat and purchased the two bears immediately.

Before I continue, I think a little background is necessary. As you’ve read in the Honeybear article, these creatures are pretty damn muscular. The speed with which they need to run to catch the necessary amount of prey to keep them running that speed requires a body fat percentage of only 2%. Furthermore, the average Honeybear weighs roughly 300-320 kg, of which nearly 270 kg is muscle. The point is, these bears don’t have much room for auxiliary tissue, such as reproductive organs. So, Honeybear cubs are extremely small when born due to the limited space the mother Honeybear has inside her belly. Below is a picture of newborn Honeybears.

I suppose I can understand how someone would think this creature is “cute” or a “hamster of some sort”. Maybe they think their disposition is sweet because they’re called “Honeybears”. Well, they aren’t sweet; they’re BEARS. And the only reason they’re called honey is because that’s the standard color of their fur, though it can range from a ruddy brown to pale fawn.

So we bought the two Honeybear cubs and a secure enclosure manufactured by CritterTrails (trust me, I banged on the plastic for while and it hardly broke). We returned home with our deadly find and set them up in their new home. Fortunately, time is on our side. Because Honeybears require so much muscle, they grow very slowly–quality over quantity. Below is a picture of our Siamese cat, Muffin, keeping an eye on the bears.

And here’s a picture of the bears together. They’re huddled with each other because they don’t have enough body fat to stay warm if they aren’t running.

So far I’ve observed the two fighting, hoarding, running and sleeping. They can climb much better than I was expecting and I will report this finding to the National Association of Bear Research (NABR). Below is a picture of one specimen scaling a vertical tube from the inside. Imagine if this bear were full grown and climbing up your chimney.

So, here’s the thing. Next time you go to the pet store looking for a new pet, stick with mice, hamsters, snakes, hedgehogs and gerbils. If you see a cage labeled, “Honeybear” or  “Honey Bear”, stay away. Even if the label reads, “Honey Bear Hamster”, it is a mistake. These are not hamsters; they are juvenile bears. Honeybears are 50 times more vicious than grizzly bears and bear adoption is a binding contract in 49 states whether the adopter is aware that the adoptee is a bear or not. Unless you are a trained, certified professional, adopting a Honeybear is certain death for you and your family. You have been warned. If you see any Honeybears available for sale ANYWHERE, send me an email at tom at bearscare dot org so that I can remove the threat and re-home the bears in the bear facility my wife and I operate from our house. Thank you.

Well, today was Groundhog Day! Groundhog Day is an ancient Asian holiday where a groundhog is used to predict the weather. Back in the 19th century, a family of groundhogs was brought to Pennsylvania in the luggage of Japanese immigrants so that they could continue their tradition. And they have to this day.

The current groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil. He is thought to be over 35 years old and is showing no signs of frailty.

The verdict: MORE WINTER. It was unfair, though. If Phil would have been brought out later in the day, he would have seen his shadow since a blizzard is about to pummel the East Coast.

Just kidding. This site is about animals (bears) and that’s it. Here’s a koala.

Recently scientests uncovvered a colony Hispaniolan solenodons. Basically the Hispaniolan solenodon looks like a big rat with a crocodile snout. These little critters may be cute but they AREN’T cuddly; the venom from one bite is 12 times more potent than a cobra’s bite and 10 times more deadly than a python’s.  Hispaniolan solenodons make excellent pets but they are not for the beginning venomous mammal enthusiast. Please check out some books at the library before you buy one or at least read Wikipedia.

Hispaniolan solenodons mostly eat meal worms but will also eat carrots, fishfood or thawed frozen peas. You’ll need a large terrarium or, even better, a serious Habitrail setup since the Hispaniolan solenodons love to run and dig. And bite.

Click it or ticket –> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7791989.stm