"US wildlife officials who tried to capture a bear that had a jar stuck on its head, have shot the animal after it wandered into a busy Minnesota town," reports the BBC. "The bear, a male about two years old, was killed by police after six days of failed efforts to catch it alive."
Oh god. This is even sadder than the polar bears. Six whole days desperately wandering around with a jar stuck on your head, before being shot right in front of everybody in the middle of a busy North American town? Could there be anything more unbearable?
Apparently the jar was "the kind that held popcorn or sweets". Isn't that sad? A million times worse than getting your heart broken.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
archive
- August 2011 (1)
- July 2011 (2)
- June 2011 (15)
- May 2011 (9)
- April 2011 (19)
- March 2011 (19)
- February 2011 (17)
- January 2011 (2)
- December 2010 (2)
- November 2010 (1)
- October 2010 (3)
- September 2010 (2)
- July 2010 (3)
- June 2010 (3)
- April 2010 (1)
- February 2010 (2)
- January 2010 (2)
- September 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (4)
- July 2009 (4)
- June 2009 (3)
- May 2009 (8)
- April 2009 (11)
- March 2009 (12)
- February 2009 (9)
- January 2009 (4)
- December 2008 (10)
- November 2008 (27)
- October 2008 (21)
- September 2008 (12)
- August 2008 (9)
- July 2008 (11)
- June 2008 (5)
- May 2008 (5)
- April 2008 (12)
- March 2008 (10)
- February 2008 (11)
- January 2008 (15)
- December 2007 (10)
- November 2007 (9)
- October 2007 (3)
- September 2007 (9)
- August 2007 (8)
- July 2007 (10)
- June 2007 (13)
- May 2007 (14)
- April 2007 (11)
- March 2007 (11)
- February 2007 (12)
- January 2007 (9)
- December 2006 (4)
- November 2006 (10)
- October 2006 (8)
- September 2006 (12)
- August 2006 (19)
- July 2006 (22)
- June 2006 (7)
- May 2006 (25)
- April 2006 (18)
- March 2006 (5)
- April 2004 (1)
- November 1998 (1)
- March 1980 (1)
The picture of that bear is like a metaphor of my life.
ReplyDeleteIf we can go to this town on the road trip thing then I will definitely consider it.
ReplyDeletePoor bear, what a sad story....
ReplyDeleteWah! Have they not heard of sedatives in Minnesota?
ReplyDeleteUnbearable - tee hee.
ReplyDeleteHow the hell can a bear with something stuck on it's head be a danger? They could have easily sedated it and removed it. I'm so ashamed of them and heartbroken at the needless suffering of a lovely animal.
ReplyDeleteDid the jar say 'Hunny' on it?
ReplyDeleteApparently the local police there have been inundated with angry calls and e-mails: http://www.startribune.com/local/26095434.html
ReplyDeleteIf only this was an Irish bear. Bock could spread this story far and wide.
ReplyDeleteIf we're discussing the comparative misery of bears, I suggest people google 'Moon Bears' and Animals Asia.
ReplyDeleteOr just lookee here - the saddest bears in the world:
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=2&lg=en
"If only this was an Irish bear. Bock could spread this story far and wide."
ReplyDeleteI'm not really finding any humour in this whole bear thing, but that was quite funny.
I'm sure the bear has some Irish ancestors we could dig up.
Sedation and re-location may also work for broken hearts.
ReplyDeletePeople are nasty, idiotic fools who are too bloody stupid to clean up after themselves. This is horrible. Why do animals have to suffer for humanities failings? Makes me sick.
ReplyDeleteWTF. If they could get close enough to shoot it, they could get close enough to tranquilize it and remove the jar.
ReplyDeleteFucking Americans.
Good point CB!
ReplyDeleteSurely six days is long enough to round up some tranquiling darts?
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently the bear was comfort eating after having it's heart broken.
Yeah! Fucking Americans! Fuck them all! Especially the kids.
ReplyDeleteAnd the retarded ones.
Fuck 'em.
For the record, CB is American.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I have to start every sentence off with "for the record" these days? I'm blaming Green Ink.
Oh, this story has broken my heart. Poor confused bear.
ReplyDeleteAnd Chris Cope is American, they are not all bad!
ReplyDeleteno, that's awful. makes me sooo mad.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I'm 100% in favour of bears with their heads stuck in sweet jars being tranquilised and released back into the wild sans jar. ;P
ReplyDeleteTwenty, the guy that shot the bear was a cage fighter from Silverton, Oregon. I swear to god.
I read about this on Chris's blog, sad indeed.
ReplyDeleteYou people have been watching too much (American) TV. It's not always "Sedative -> Falls asleep", sometimes it's "Sedative -> 15 minutes wandering around drugged and angry -> Falls asleep". Who wants drugged and angry bears wandering around a populated area?
ReplyDeleteIf they had gone the sedative route route and the bear had injured somebody you have all the same hand wringers on here complaining about the risks they took. Because no matter what happens everybody is an instant expert.
It's sad, no doubt. But no more sad than the lamb chops or t-bone you had for dinner last night just because bears are cute.
This grumpy note was brought to you by the number 9 and the letter M
Yipes, not sure my name should be thrown out as a defence of Americans.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair (similar to "for the record," but from Wales speech), I was thinking about all this and kind of couldn't figure out a better solution than shooting the bear.
We feel sympathy for the poor thing because it's activity was cute. It's like when Pooh got his head stuck in a jar of honey. But Pooh had a charming English accent and in terms of mauling human beings he was neither capable nor inclined. Black bears are generally not inclined either, but will do so if agitated. And I suspect a good way to agitate a bear is to put a plastic jar on its head for six days.
I'm guessing y'all have never been to the Itasca area (yes, Annie, we can go there) -- it's kind of remote. That's why they have bears. There's probably some sort of equation one could work up to show that more bears = fewer police, so when this bear rolled into town there wasn't exactly a riot squad there to greet it, especially with a festival on in town (Turkey Days!). But to be generous, let's say four officers were there -- each equipped with the tools of a small-town police force:
Car -- That's no good. The bears can climb on top of a car. Using the car as a weapon would make people even angrier than shooting it.
Nightstick -- Not so good against a bear.
Pepper spray -- Rumoured to be something that bears actually LIKE, but ineffective regardless when the bear has a plastic covering over its head.
Firearms -- Most effective available tool.
Police forces do not carry tranquillizer guns. Most likely, anyone with such a device would work for the MN-DNR (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources). That person would have to be called in from somewhere else and who knows how long it would have taken for them to get there. I would think AT LEAST 45 minutes. The police had no tools for containing a bear, remember.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the building of where the bear was shot, that town festival was taking place. If police had sat waiting for a DNR guy with a tranquillizer to show up, the bear might have wandered into an area full of people and children and grandmas. At that point, they definitely would have to shoot it, and generally it's not a good idea to open fire into a crowd.
The bear was killed with a single shot, so I'm guessing that when the opportunity to kill it as humanely as possible presented itself, that option was chosen for lack of a better one.
Why didn't they get it with a tranquillizer gun earlier in the week? Because it was in a wooded area. Obviously, the people to be angry at are the former owners of that jar, who failed to dispose of their waste properly. Most likely it was some fucking family from Ohio that had been camping and they are back in Cleveland by now, writing angry e-mails to the Frazee police about shooting bears.
I'm not denying that I feel bad for the bear because it's cute. It's so cute that I'm sure if it had seen me in Minnesota it would have come right up to me and cuddled me.
ReplyDeleteBut I think the saddest thing about the bear stories is they were just trying to have something nice for themselves. This bear got caught out having a tasty snack, and the polar bears got caught trying to go on their holidays to Iceland.
It's just heart-breaking.
Chris, that's a whole lot of sense for this early in the morning. Careful now.
ReplyDeleteAnnie, bears are cute from a distance. Bear hugs administered by bears are rarely a good thing.
If you all haven't seen it Grizzly Man is worth a watch - a cracking film in its own right but highlights the bears are very wild animals message very well.
Had my coffee, and coming to the realisation that I'm off to sunnier climes for the weekend, grumpiness wearing off.
I always thoght Grizzly Man was a cracking film that highlights that whiny blonde men shouldnt wander into the wild playing Tarzan with wild animals..
ReplyDeleteIf it had been a glass jar the bear could have smashed it against a tree or something.
ReplyDeleteBut as it was made of pliable plastic that takes for ever to break down, the bear couldn't drink or eat and was probably suffering severe dehydration when it was shot and maybe was beyond hope because of a build up of toxins resulting from gross dehydration and inability to urinate properly.
Bottom line: the bear was probably done for before any bullets hit it.
Just sedating the bear would not in itself have saved it absent putting a medical drip on the bear (sedated the bear can't drink). Think of the logistics, a sedated dying bear on a town/city street.
The bear was probably in a miserable dying condition when they killed it.
Maybe they took too long trying to save the bear resulting in unnecessary stress and pain for the bear. This is a common mistake, imho, with regard to beached whales. These creatures suffer terrible when beached and after a certain point become dehydrated and their blood toxic because their kidneys can’t work properly and even if they are refloated the whale is likely to be so far gone and dazed that it can’t swim back out to sea and eat something to put water back into its blood – the humane thing might be to put the suffering animal to sleep sooner than let it flounder and die dazed with massive internal organ failure.
That's awful. I'm sorry I read the story now ....:( There are many bear confrontations where I live , but I think this has to be the saddest tale of all.
ReplyDelete