BEARSCARE

So, my wife was just reading The Drudge Report (whatever that is) and I noticed a large bear picture on the front page. Naturally I almost lost it. She told me he put the picture up because of the “bear” market. Who ever chose these mascots anyway? Bulls and bears? Bulls are weak. Look, a bear market is fine. We’re cutting the fat and purging the market of excess. That’s what bears do and just like nature, they keep the stock market healthy.

Bulls are stupid. And totally 20 years ago. Nobody really cares anymore. Do you ever look at your hamburger and think about rallying bulls? No, of course you don’t. Do you look at your hamburger and think about sweet bears? You might if you fall into 1 of 2 categories:

1. Me or my sympathizers
2. Ursaphages — criminals who deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law

Just relax.

Click on that bear if you want to check out the Drudge Report. I don’t really read it but my wife does, so it’s fine by me.

Writing for this website is a true joy. Usually. But, along with writing about great animal-related events comes the responsibiity of covering the tragedies. With over 14,000 site views, it is my sad duty to report that Knut’s loving keeper has died.

No one knows the cause of death yet and we should all just take time to mourn and remember. And we can’t blame Knut-it’s highly unlikely he had anything to do with it and he’s mourning too.

Here’s the story on CNN.

RIP Doerflein.

More bear news. I don’t have much to say about this, but I’m just putting here to be complete. Here’s what happened:

• Mom hears dog barking
• Dad finds out dog had chased bear up a tree
• Little kid claims the dog had jumped on the bear and “chewed it”

It’s HIGHLY unlikely the bear would put up with a dog chewing on it. What’s much more likely is the peace-loving bear just wanted to avoid conflict and knew he couldn’t reason with the dog on the ground.

Here’s the link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/08/07/pkg.bear.treed.wtlv

Foxnews.com is reporting that some kid was attacked by an unidentified animal. Here is a list of the most likely culprits

1. Grizzly bear cub
2. Pack of ravenous nutria
3. Lost bees
4. Koalas
5. Camel spider
6. Courtney Love
7. Arctic sea bird
8. 1 mile of inch worms (63,360 worms)
9. Aardvark?
10. Scottish Fold kitten

Actually, I’m almost sure it was the kitten.

You may have heard rumors about a sleepy bear. Those rumors are true. See it first here!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm5KxM0U4BE]

It has recently been brought to my attention by various media outlets that a grizzly bear has been FILMED DANCING in Glacier National Park. Look at how much of the man this bear is being. I can’t dance at all — we’re not even having dancing at our wedding. Maybe now we’ll have bears at the wedding to spice things up.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTDelq0zTAc&hl=en]

I’d say of all the bears, the sun bear is my favorite. Smallest of all bears, sun bears range between between about 40-132 pounds and are only about 4′ long [1]. A very short tail adds only about 2″ to the average sun bear.

Sun bears have funny looking, rounded claws and bare paw-pads to help with climbing. They like to eat ANYTHING including, but not limited to, lizards, eggs, small mammals, other sun bears [2], fruits and other tasty vegetation.

Fortunately, the worst thing that would generally happen to a sun bear is to be eaten by a tiger or a python. Humans do kill bears for destroying crops and, apparently, there is some poaching, but often humans just use them for pets, which isn’t so bad. Many bears in Southeast Asia have much worse fates at the hands of humans. Would you believe that Asiatic black bears are kept in cages and used for their bile in China and Vietnam [3]? They actually believe that bear bile has healing properties. This behavior is absolutely disgusting. No wonder they embrace communism.

Here’s sun bears in action:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFMT3WRbk_g]

Sun bears are listed as vulnerable, so we need to keep an eye on them [4].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Bear (all sun bear facts presented here are from this reference)

[2] Just kidding!

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear 

[4] My fiancee doesn’t actually believe that sun bears exist. I need to spread awareness.

I am absolutely 110% dedicated to bringing the world relevant information about bears that is also stimulating/fun. I keep an eye on how people find my page using search engines and I am pleased. The title of the post is a search string that led a lucky surfer to bearscare.org yesterday (2/13/2008).

I hope his buddy doesn’t get eaten by a bear and I hope that the content here helps prevent such a tragedy. Please, PLEASE if there’s anything I can do to help your bear problems or misunderstandings, leave a comment or email me. Also, the page recently hit 1, 000 views. I couldn’t do this without your support and I just want to say thanks.

Pandas are probably the most popular bear in the world but the suffer from low libido/ED. So, it isn’t surprising that panda cubs are few and far between. And that makes it even more exciting when one is born. Today is a happy day, my friends. A really happy one.

As the most comprehensive and well respected bear-oriented webpage in the universe, it is our honor to introduce bear lovers worldwide to Fu Long:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsaddsO4okc&rel=1]

I think eagles and I have a lot in common but I don’t think I could ever be one. Today, I left work slightly after noon to get lunch. Salad was the plan, but as I neared the Balducci’s in Alexandria, VA, I began to doubt myself. I decided to go with sushi instead. I like fish the way bears like fish: raw. I’ve never had the chance to eat live salmon, but I have eaten raw bits of salmon on clumps of rice. One time my family went to an Asian restaurant and I ordered sashimi thinking it would be fish on rice, but it was just fish. I became closer to the bear than ever that day, though I’ve drifted–through no fault of my own–slightly since.

As I was eating my sushi and reading CNN, I spotted this article. It seems a bunch of bald eagles dove into a TRUCK OF FISH GUTS. I guess they were so pumped up by the smell of raw fish they couldn’t take it any more. I can relate, but not totally. Some of the eagles did not survive–they probably drowned. The lucky ones were washed off and suffered the indignity of being left to dry out in a warehouse. If you ask me, it just wasn’t worth it. Below is what an eagle looks like wet.

I guess dogs and cats probably eat fish guts in their food, but it’s generally nonlethal and the smell is disguised with the smell of old fish. I bet my dog, Resi, would jump into a tank of fish-anything. She can swim really well.

Below is an excellent video targeted at viewers who have little to no knowledge of eagles. Intermediate eagle fanciers will find this mostly review. Eagle experts should move on to something else right now.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1x1m6SB4ks&rel=1]

Peace out.