BEARSCARE

My fellow bearscarers, today marks our fourth year of ONLINE DOMINANCE OF BEAR RELATED CONTENT. Let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back.

And guess what? I received a letter from President Obama a few days ago which was marked not to be opened until today. It reads:

“Bearscare is a valuable resource for all Americans. Often when I begin to veto a bill, just before I squiggle the “3″ part of “B”, I catch myself, and my breath, sit back in my high-backed executive chair and reflect. Then I go to bearscare.org to clear my mind and actually learn something new.” With the election year roaring distance away, I won’t take sides, but I would like to thank Mr. Obama for his warm comments and wish him and his a very merry Christmas. And to all of you, from the very bottom of my furry heart, merry Christmas! We couldn’t have done this without you.

Sincerely,

Tom

Just in: Scientists have discovered an asteroid which nearly annihilated life as we know it on planet Earth during a close fly-by. “We knew about it roughly 2 hours prior to impact,” said Dustin Forester, a NASA dispatcher who was first alerted to the threat by an anonymous amateur astronomer. He continued, “what, we were going to call CNN? No, we got on the red phone to the White House, but that’s it. Didn’t you see ‘Armageddon’? That was just a movie. Imagine what people would actually do.”

President Obama learning of imminent threat

After the brief phone interview, we asked the White House for comment. Will Bridges, the Obama Administration’s Press Secretary for Astronomical Anomalies (WHPSAA), gave the following statement: “The President was advised of the danger and was deeply troubled. He did open the vault protecting The Button, but he erred on the side of caution. Yes, we could have done something, but at what cost? The probability of the foreign body hitting our planet was less than 1 in 1,000,000, but the probability of causing mass hysteria from using The Button was 100%. What would you have done?”

2009 VA, the planet killer

The asteroid has been named by astronomers “2009 VA”. It is approximately 100 miles across and is thought to weigh about 1/100,000 the mass of Earth. “It’s a planet killer,” remarked Ron Bingham, an astronomy major at Virginia Commonwealth University, “if it had impacted, we’d all be doomed. Have you ever heard of ‘nuclear winter’? Yeah, it’s like that. This is worse than the rock that took out the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago.”

Astronomers aren’t sure yet whether our planet’s gravity will slingshot* the rock back around to impact us in the future. They’ve estimated that there’s only a 12% chance that this may occur, which isn’t satisfying AT ALL to me. So, keep checking back for end of the world updates.

*Referenced from the film “Apollo 13″

On Friday, an airplane landed on an airstrip about 20 miles outside Chicago which, apparently, was piloted by a wild Grizzly bear. “We really don’t know what happened,” explained Roger Williams, a local police officer. “When we arrived at the airstrip, we could clearly see the bear in the cockpit and he was exteremely agitated. He was clawing at the windshield, which was getting pretty foggy.”

US Airways flight 1451 last radioed O’Hare Airport at 4:40 PM when the pilot requested permission to initiate the Boeing 757′s final approach. And “then he clicked off and the aircraft veered to the south,” remarked Jose Ramirez, the air traffic controller managing flight 1451. Ramirez went on, “I repeatedly tried to radio the pilot, but there was no response. I contacted the FBI and they said that they would give the situation top priority. I guess it wasn’t such a big deal and it’s a miracle they found that airstrip.” Later, when Mr. Ramirez was informed about the bear being the pilot, he sat down and refused to comment further.

When all the passengers had been evacuated, seasoned animal handlers opened the cockpit and subdued the bear; the pilot was nowhere to be found. A statement released by an official from the FAA, who asked to remain anonymous, read, “if, in fact, the pilot did disappear into thin air, then this bear is a hero. We have performed x-rays on the bear, and all we’ve found has been a dozen snack packs and a few apple juice containers. Look, we have no idea how this happened. We don’t know how the bear got onto the plane in the first place, we don’t know where the pilot is or when he left the cockpit, and we have no idea how the bear manipulated the controls. I mean, he had to press switches that were much, much smaller than his paw. Imagine typing on a keyboard with a plunger and that keyboard was responsible for the lives of over 100 people. Amazing. I still haven’t wrapped my head around this one.”

According to White House officials, President Obama was “literally seconds away from scrambling jets to engage and destroy the rogue airplane.” The White House has not released an official statement, but a press conference has been planned for 7:30 PM EST.

…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.”

URGENT.

During the past few weeks, I have been conducting a research study in the lakes and ponds of Virginia and have collected surprising results. The Virginia Jellyfish population has tripled over the last two years and the creatures are displaying increased levels of intelligence.

The Virginia Jellyfish is very similar to other jellyfish in appearance only. They are unique among jellyfish in that they have intelligence rivaling that of a medium rodent. Earlier this year, a fisherman observed two Virginia Jellyfish climb up the side of his boat and enter it, presumably looking for food. Since this first occurrence, reports of Virginia Jellyfish climbing into boats have flooded in and, reportedly, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has formed a task force to evaluate the threat. “They’re just fish, you know, but the climbing has us very alarmed,” remarked Rhett Sinclair, an unofficial Kaine spokesperson. President Barack Obama has not released an official statement on the matter, but sources  say that he has been notified and is deeply troubled.

There have been no documented deaths from Virginia Jellyfish attacks, but several fisherman have been hospitalized with injuries consistent with jellyfish stings. The problem is that Virginia Jellyfish are pack hunters and will continue experiment with new, advanced techniques. It is only a matter of time before Virginia Jellyfish discover refrigerators and pantries; they can survive out of water for near 3 hours in some cases.

Basically, Virginia’s shot. If you live there, please look into nearby states or the District of Columbia. If you plan to cross state lines, please check yourself, car and clothing for possible Virginia Jellyfish eggs; they are always experimenting with new ways to increase their numbers and spread their influence. Check back regularly for updates, but all Virginians should expect to be quarantined at the very least.

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

Yo! I’ve been jamming my EYEBALLS on cnn for like 3 days but there haven’t been any polar bears, squids, deer, grizzly bears, etc. at all. The reason? This Obama guy. So, considering my recent exchange with my bro, Chris, about pythons, I just thought I’d post this sick-ass video:

This snake is 7 m, approximately one fourth the size of my behemoth python, Giuseppe. Now, picture the snake in the video but four times bigger. That’s my jam factory, G-Bone. If he had it his way he’d eat 12 pigs per week but I keep him Kosher so it’s turkey/chicken 100%.

Just now I took a quick glance at all the major candidates’ websites and McCain’s was the only one that made any mention of anything even remotely close to bears or other wildlife (the Parks Service). This is deeply disturbing to me. I have tentatively decided to endorse John McCain for president but feel that his commitment to bear conservation is lacking. I hope that he will address my concerns over the next few months.

Obama and Clinton only care about global warming. Global warming is important as it affects polar bears, but it needs to be addressed in that context. I am very concerned that the bears will be overlooked in any democratic plan to reverse climate change. All they care about is rising water levels in Florida. Well boo-hoo. Who cares? Huckabee didn’t even mention environment/animal issues as far as I could tell. We need to save the seals and we need to save the polar bears. We need a president who is not afraid.

I will be submitting videos to youtube with questions for the debates. And if those questions aren’t answered, the people who pick questions will feel my scourge. Especially that clown Anderson Cooper.