Sharing the blame

Two very different charismatic large animals are veritable poster children for the terrible effects of human activity on the planet. The polar bear is threatened by global climate change because sea ice is a crucial part of their habitat. And collisions with human pleasure boats are a major cause of death for manatees.

But it's only fair to say that sometimes these animals are really not helping themselves, as a couple of recent news items show:

-Bear Suicide by Cop
A Newfoundland man awoke to a commotion early one morning to find a polar bear breaking into his home. He fired two shots to drive it off, but that just sent it off to make trouble elsewhere:

He said the bear beat in doors and broke windows at three other homes, and killed some sheep and ducks at a nearby stable without stopping to eat.

“It seemed like it was killing for the sake of killing. It wasn't hungry.”

At one home, the bear “just broke the windows out of each side of the house and went on,” he said. “It seemed like he was in a bad mood.”

Wildlife officials tracked down the bear and shot it, and honestly, after this violent crime spree, who can blame them? We have a right to defend our own species. And if an animal's survival is already threatened, shouldn't it be a little more careful about provoking armed citizens?

Sea-cow Stupidity
Scientists apparently have never had any idea why the heck so many manatees get hit by boats. It's true that they can't see very well, so that could be part of it. But motorized boats are pretty damn noisy. Are these animals deaf too?

Well, that's not the answer either. A recent study proved that manatees in fact have very sensitive hearing, as shown by a test where they were trained to hit a paddle to get a treat when they heard a sound. In fact they're so sensitive that they refused to participate when the noise was at higher frequencies, as if it annoyed them.

So if they can hear the boats, why don't they get out of the way?

The scientist suggested:

"Manatees might be less aware of these sounds when they are sleeping, eating or performing other activities related to their daily lives that require their full attention," Gaspard said. "There are also a multitude of environmental factors that come into play. Understanding how animals use their various senses is a complex process. Could their sense of touch also be playing a role here? We are working on that question now."

But an alternate theory was proposed on Twitter by my go-to guy for marine animal science, @WhySharksMatter:

@WhySharksMatter Why can't manatees avoid speedboats?... Because they're dumb. They shouldn't die for that, but it's true.
@WhySharksMatter The manatee is nature's D student.

Yes, perhaps boaters should be more careful. But if boats are making a racket that an animal can hear perfectly well and it can't be bothered to move out of the way.... well, it takes two to make a collision, you know?





That design submitted to Threadless in 2007 apparently never made it to a t-shirt. Too far ahead of its time, I guess.

Bad animal classics

More new cases of traditional offenses:

-Reptiles on a plane: An Australian cargo pilot was making a solo flight when a snake slid out of the dashboard and along his leg. Australia being a place where a decent proportion of the wildlife can kill you with various venoms, he did not wait for a positive species ID, and quickly made an emergency return the airport.

His level head saved him, unlike the passengers of a flight where a small croc escaped from someone's luggage. In their panic they unbalanced the aircraft and it crashed, killing all but one of them.

-Cats vs Post: Yet another customer had mail service suspended in England because of his vicious cat. Similar to previous cases, (for example here and here) the owner claimed the accusation that his pet was a 'health and safety risk' was "utterly ridiculous," and a neighbor said 'Snowball is a lovely cat and friendly. I can’t imagine her ever attacking anybody.'

But you can't fight the post office, and delivery was only resumed when he built a cat-excluding cage around his letter slot.

-Bears where they shouldn't be: Officials in LA captured a bear that's been wandering a neighborhood for about a month, committing offenses like breaking into a refrigerator and eating frozen meatballs. The bear didn't go down without teaching one resident an important lesson: A man was caught on video nearly walking straight into the bear because he was texting.

Let this be a warning to keep those phones in your pocket when you're on the move, because you never know when you'll come face to face with a bad animal.


Cat waiting for the postman by Flickr user nonasuch.

Don't bring a gun to a bear fight

New research about how to defend yourself against bears has some bad news and some good news - and, unsurprisingly, brings the bad animal enablers out in force.

The bad news is that even if you have the right to bear arms, arms aren't always effective against bears. Yes, a gun worked to kill or drive off the animal in 80 percent of cases, but it turned out that statistic is not as comforting as it sounds. Many people were mauled or killed anyway, resulting in the surprising conclusion that carrying a gun made no statistical difference to the outcome of a human-bear encounter.

How is this possible? Bears aren't immune to bullets, thank goodness, but people often couldn't load or shoot fast enough. And there's another reason guns were ineffective that should not surprise readers of this blog: one-fifth of the armed humans were reluctant to use the weapon against the animal.

If that's not enough bad-animal enabling for you, another "expert" suggested that what we should really do is - wait for it - try to reason with the bear:

Talking in a calm voice, not moving when the bear's coming toward you, giving the bear a chance to think things over and realize you're not threatening. A lot of times that will resolve the situation.

Yes, we've got professional wildlife experts suggesting that we should let bears "think things over." Still, all is not hopeless. While the study author said "A charging animal is like a small car running at you," fortunately there's at least one big difference between a small car and a bear: bears don't like pepper spray. In an earlier study, he found that pepper spray worked for all but three of 156 people in 71 conflicts with bears.

I like those odds better - and it also means that if you're ever caught unarmed in a pizza shop invaded by a bear, at least you can try throwing the shaker of red pepper flakes.


Illustration by Natalie Dee, who is obviously not a bear enabler.

Traditions and trends news briefs

It's a time of year when traditions take center stage. Some prefer precise repetition, with every ornament on the tree in the same place; others want to push the envelope, stuffing the turkey with new-fangled ingredients instead of using Mom's old-time recipe.

Bad animal have traditions, too, and like us, some of them are old-school, and some are pushing the envelope:

-Dogs shooting their owners with guns: it's so common that it made it into the subtitle of the book - and they're not stopping now.

In Utah, a dog in a boat with some duck hunters jumped onto a shotgun and shot one of them in the butt. The man was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and released. Those of you who object to hunting will no doubt be pleased by local news reports that "The dog and any ducks within range at the time of the accident were uninjured."

A more serious case occurred in Florida, where a bulldog named Eli in shot his owner in the thigh with a rifle while in a truck on a hunting trip. Reports called the shooting "unintentional" despite the fact the dog had to release the safety before being able to shoot the gun. The 78-year-old victim was shot in a major artery and and as of last Tuesday was still on a ventilator.

-Bears scavenging for garbage and even breaking into homes is nothing new, but they're taking it to a new level. I thought I was impressed by the bear in Vancouver that actually hitched a ride on a garbage truck (video here) until I read about the bear that had been living for weeks in a basement in New Jersey.

The animal had built a bed of leaves and branches and was ready for a comfy winter till a cable TV guy came to make a repair. He heard a growl and turned to find himself facing a 500 pound black bear:

"I just freaked out, threw my tools, ran out of the basement."

It took a hour-long chase for animal control officers to tranquilize and capture the bear. The homeowner plans to start keeping his basement locked, and maybe you want to check all your doors as well.

-Finally, what may be a new trend: we recently saw a seal trying to get into someone's house in Australia.

That one didn't make it, but seals seem to be taking this as an ongoing project, and the second attempt was a success. No doubt realizing our weakness for the cute, this time the seals sent a baby to perform the mission. After making its way from the water across busy roads, up a long driveway, under a gate and through the cat door, it made itself at home on a sofa.

Fortunately, they chose a victim that had more sense than most. The New Zealand woman at first thought she was hallucinating, then, she said:

"Then it looks at me with those huge brown eyes. It was so cute, but I didn't touch it because you don't with wild animals."

Mainstream media on the bad animal beat

This blog is often a lone voice in the cause of outing cute animals as the hooligans and degenerates that they really are. So it's encouraging to see this story from none other than the Associated Press, which reveals the truth behind a well-publicized "aawwww" moment.

The adorable photo above, of a mama bear giving her cub a ride across a lake on her back, was taken by a retiree who was fishing in New Mexico. It was picked up by TV and the news and no doubt was the occasion of much cooing and exclaiming over the amazing maternal instincts of animals.

But New Mexico wildlife officials have revealed that this bear, identified by an ear tag, has "a rap sheet as long as her arm:"

Bear No. 56 grew up in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque, turning to trouble in 2002. That’s the year she was picked up at least four times for raiding trash cans, chicken coops — and sometimes houses — in the small mountain community of Tijeras.

On her fourth recorded encounter with the law, Bear No. 56 was chased up a tree and tranquilized. After that, officers decided to relocate her to the Zuni Mountains, about 100 miles to the west.

One Rick Winslow, identified as the state's large carnivore wildlife biologist, is quoted as saying that this bear has covered an amazing amount of ground, and that what's even more unusual is that she was never euthanized after four and possibly five episodes of being relocated. The state's normal procedure for bears is "three strikes and you're out," and that means permanently out.

He says this like he had nothing to do with it, but isn't the state's large carnivore wildlife biologist exactly the person who should have been in the loop making these decisions? With all the scientists we've seen making excuses for bad animals, we think it's unfortunate that the AP didn't take a closer look at this official and exactly whose side he is on. Rick Winslow, we'll be keeping an eye on you.

Bears will stop at nothing

This blog has been following the misdeeds of bears since at least 2009 when a bear mugged a New Jersey man in his driveway for his Italian sandwich. We've seen bears breaking into cars, a bear in a hot tub, and one stealing from a back porch freezer, to name a few.

But recently the trend has been ominous: Bears have been boldly strolling right into our homes and businesses. Earlier this month, we saw bears that broke into a pizza place and robbed a home of a birthday cake. And then, if you are a fan of the blog's Facebook page, you saw video of a bear climbing around in the vegetable department in a grocery store. (And if you're not a fan of the blog on Facebook, why not?)

Now, the bear invasion may be threatening one of our most precious national traditions. Hide your Halloween supplies or you may be next: a bear broke into a candy shop in Tennessee. When two employees arrived for work in the morning, they found a scene of devastation:

Candy, wrappers and packaging were strewn throughout the back storeroom. Rock candy was broken in tiny pieces all over the floor and nuts were scattered everywhere. Pecan logs — $15.95 a pound — had been chewed on and hunks were missing out of $3 caramel apples. A whole container of white-chocolate-covered pretzels was demolished, including the plastic packaging they were housed in.

The storeroom's cement floor was still wet and covered in paw prints, from the bear's walk through the morning showers.

Upon further inspection, after rounding one of the candy-making counters, the women noticed a hole in glass of the front door. The bear had also relieved itself in front of the shop's glass display cases.

The pair assumed the bear was gone, but ran out to the safety of their cars to phone their supervisor anyway. Good thinking, because when he arrived, he came face to face with the bear in a storeroom. Fortunately no one was injured, but $500 worth of sweets were lost, and the front door of the shop will need to be replaced.

Don't think you're safe because you're not in the Tennesee mountains. Bears are heading for places where people aren't used to them, like the suburbs of Atlanta - so far those bears have been satisfied with trash and bird feeders, but how long do you think that will last?

And you can't even expect the authorities to be on your side. They'll advise you not to leave food where bears can get at it, and then, like in Albuquerque, they go and take in a skinny bear, feed it up, and release it.

That bear knew what side his bread was buttered on. When Fish and Game officials brought him up into the mountains and opened the door to freedom, one said, "He wasn’t eager to go... he didn’t want to come out of the trap for some reason."

"For some reason." Yeah, now he'll have to break into houses on his own, instead of being served. But they've made sure he'll do a good job of it: "He is now a nearly 200 pound bear," said a staff member at the wildlife rehab center where the bear had been a guest. "And a very feisty bear, aggressive bear. He should do well."

CSI: BEARS is not enough to protect us

Followers of bad animal news might have taken comfort in the fact that a grizzly in Yellowstone National park recently received the death sentence after DNA evidence linked it to the deaths of two hikers in separate attacks.

But less widely reported stories from across North America suggest that this is no time to become complacent about bears - even if you stay safely away from the wilderness. These animals are coming after us where we live:

-In Florida, the hunt is on for a bear that has been breaking into houses and stealing food. In one recent incident the bear got away with a birthday cake, prompting officials to set up a trap baited with cupcakes. So far, the bruin has not been tempted, perhaps because it's reading the news reports that helpfully warn of plans to euthanize the bear if it's captured.

-In Pennsylvania, Richard Moyer was letting his dog in late at night when a black bear rushed through the door and jumped him. As the two struggled on the living room floor, Moyer's wife tried to break it up, and the bear turned on her and dragged her outside. Eventually their combined counterattacks convinced the bear to retreat. "I know what it's like to be a salmon now," a bandaged-up Moyer joked - but also noted that one scratch had come within an inch of an artery: "If it had hit that, I wouldn't be here to tell the story."

-And in British Columbia, it wasn't a home that was invaded, but an institution almost as dear: a pizza parlor. Staff saw the bear checking out an outside garbage can but were afraid to get near enough to close the door, so it strolled right in and dove into a pie. Employees - as well as twenty spectators taking photos and video - watched as the bear ate four pizzas, reportedly including vegetarian, cheeseburger, and beef with blue cheese. While bears can't post online restaurant reviews, it apparently thought highly of the meal: it tried to come back twice the same night.

Don't say I didn't warn you

In 2009, a bear broke into a car in Colorado. Alerted by the car alarm and assuming a theft was in progress, the owners called the cops. When deputies arrived, they helpfully opened the car doors so the bear could escape.

In 2010, also in Colorado, officers didn't arrive till the bear had gotten a little further - this time it had driven the car out of the owner's driveway. These officers made sure to take photos to post on the Internet before, yes, opening the car doors so the bear could escape.

Now, it's happened again, in Lake Tahoe. Another bear managed to drive a car a short way, and this time, it got away on its own.

While the police in this recent case weren't active accomplices in the bear's escape - probably only because they didn't get the chance - they clearly took the incident just as lightly. A spokesman for the police department reportedly laughed when he said "Normally, you'll get reports of the Dumpster divers and trash divers, but bears breaking into cars is different."

And the owner of the car reportedly "had no clue why a bear would want to get inside his car," because there was no food inside.

People: Bears are teaching themselves to drive and you're not paying attention. When the bear army arrives, and you're surprised that they're in vehicles, don't say you weren't warned.



If only Patches was right that simple mauling was all we had to worry about.

Another great American heroine

They warn you not to get between a mama bear and its offspring. But someone needs to tell bears that they better not get between a human woman and her beloved dog.

Last year we met a woman in Montana who saved her dog from a bear by hitting it with a zucchini. Now, an Alaskan woman is getting attention far and wide for rescuing her dog from a bear with her bare hands.

Brooke Collins let her dogs out as usual one evening, but then heard her dachshund Fudge barking, making “the most horrible sound in the world.”

And then, she told the Juneau Empire, she saw a bear crouched down, holding Fudge in his paws, biting his neck: “That bear was carrying her like a salmon.”

Collins didn't even have a vegetable to use for defense, but that didn't stop her: She ran up to the bear and punched it in the snout. It dropped the dachshund and she grabbed him and ran.

“It was all so fast. All I could think about was my dog was going to die,” she said. “It was a stupid thing but I couldn’t help it.”

Stupid or not - well, yes, stupid. But still, this woman's brave bare-handed stand against bad animals has grabbed the world's attention: she's been contacted by radio stations and newspapers around the world for interviews.

Collins says that her unexpected fame is a bit overwhelming and she kind of wishes it would go away. Well, she needn't worry - it will soon enough, her viral celebrity eclipsed by yet more photos of cute baby animals and heartwarming tales of unlikely interspecies friendships. But for a moment, for a change, the spotlight is on a story of a bad animal getting what it deserves - let's enjoy it while we can.

Bears don't wait for an invitation

A bit belated, but it's important to draw attention to this story from back in June of a presumptuous bear. A woman in Seminole County, Florida, had seen black bears in her yard before, but none had taken advanatge like this:

He headed toward her pool and pressed his nose against the screen. Then he just walked through the screen "like it was made of butter."

First he put his mouth in her spa, then a paw and finally he just jumped in.

"I think he was hot and thirsty," Rhoades said. "It looked like he knew what he was doing.

"He had been in a pool or spa before, there's no doubt in my mind," she said.

She went outside and banged on a table and he got out of the spa and left through the hole he had made in the screen.

She wasted no time scaring the bear away because she didn't want him to get used to using her spa and she didn't want him to leave "a package" behind.

I would especially draw your attention to this line:

"He had been in a pool or spa before, there's no doubt in my mind."

Once animals get a taste of these luxuries, there's no turning back. Fortify those backyard enclosures, Floridians, or look forward to a world where we are nothing but the pool boys for bears.

To impress this more throughly on your mind, see more of her photos here.

Self-Defense against Bad Animals

A few recent stories with some important information on how to - or how not to - defend yourself against animal attack:

-If you don't want to be attacked by lions, note the following:

A recent study conducted in Tanzania, where over a thousand people were attacked by lions between 1988 and 2009 (two/thirds of whom were eaten), found that these attacks are most common in the days after a full moon. In addition, the most dangerous time of day is between 6pm and 10pm, and the most dangerous time of year is between November and May.

Read more details at Not Exactly Rocket Science, or else just stay the heck indoors.

-If you want to defend yourself against bears, don't believe what you read in the paper:

A recent attack by a grizzly on a group of teens in Alaska was reported by reputable news outlets under headlines like "Teen Survives Bear Attack by Kicking." Um, not so much. Read a useful analysis of the media misconceptions at the Alaska Dispatch, and also this piece on how a gun won't help you either. Or just stay indoors.

-If you want to defend yourself against wild pigs, don't bother trying to shoot them:

Rural New York state is fighting a losing battle against wild boars. Suspected of escaping from game farms, they've established wild populations, and have been reported chasing people, attacking livestock and killing at least one dog.

Wild pigs can be devastating to the environment (check out the story we linked to in February from Smithsonian Magazine about the havoc being wrought by feral pigs in Texas). They're also a danger to people, a fact well known in Germany, as we've mentioned before (and which we go report in more detail in the book coming out in the fall. Hey, did you see that pre-order link over there on the right?).

The most frightening part of the news out of New York state, though, is the difficulty of defending ourselves against these super-swine:

We've shot them right square in the head and the bullet will glance off and they'll get up and go. Their skulls are so thick in the front, if you don't happen to hit it at a perfect 90 degrees, with the way their heads have that kind of curved shape, the bullet will glance right off.

Yeah... just stay indoors.

The REAL bear problem

So word has it that people in Germany are in a tizzy about the dating problems of Knut, the former cute polar cub who was hand-reared and became world famous. The Telegraph reports, kindly translating the German news for us:

"Knut, the public's favourite, has become a heap of misery," said Germany's mass-selling daily Bild. "Instead of enjoying himself with the three ladies, he cowers fearfully in a corner," added the more staid Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Hopes that Knut might form a romantic attachment with one of the females appear to have been dashed as stories emerged of violent maulings.

One video posted online showed Katjuscha hurling herself at Knut's throat, in an apparent attempt to bite him, before tipping him into the water.

"These sad images of Knut are pulling the heartstrings of people around the world," said Bild.

Knut's keeper sensibly downplays this nonsense, saying "it was only two minutes in the life of a bear."

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Knut is having lady problems. It was earlier reported that he appeared to be "relieved" that a potential girlfriend brought all the way from Italy had been sent home.

And in fact, a couple of years ago, one zoologist warned that due to his hand-reared background, Knut would never successfully mate, saying the bear had "become addicted to human beings" and describing him as a "psychopath".

But why on earth are people concerned about this bear's relationship issues in the first place? Bears don't worry about your love life. These are animals that will mug a man in his own driveway for a hero sandwich, break into our homes and steal our pizza, and are close to learning how to steal our cars.

And while maybe a bear attacking a hunter can claim self defense - perhaps even if it chases him up into a tree - bears will also go after campers sleeping innocently in their tents and one recently attacked a Washington state man who was just walking his dog:

Bellevue City Councilman John Chelminiak says one of the things he remembers most vividly about the bear attack that left him with critical injuries was when the animal went for his head.

"Being bitten... and the sound that that makes as her teeth were going into my head and running along the skull," Chelminiak during his first interview since the Sept. 17 attack. "It was just a horrendous fight."

Chelminiak lost his left eye, and calls it a miracle that doctors were able to piece him back together.

Bear attacks are also on the rise in Japan, and you're not even safe when you're already dead: in Russia, bears have started looking for food in human graveyards.

Masha Vorontsova, Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), admits it's not due to any critical food shortage or anything, either:

"In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others," she added, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners."

According to Vorontsova, the omnivorous bears had "plenty to eat" this autumn, with foods such as fish and ants at normal levels. The bears raided graveyards because they offered a supply of easy food, she said, a bit like a giant refrigerator.

Even Ms Vorontsova, whose job no doubt requires her to be a defender of bears, is unable to stomach her rationalization, though, and she adds, "The story is horrible. Nobody wants to think about having a much loved member of their family eaten by a bear."

Lovely. So, anyway, I think I'll pass on worrying about the romantic problems of bears, and I suggest you do the same.


Photo from Flickr user foxgrrl to remind us that ALL advice from bears is bad advice.

Bad Animals and Bad Guys

There is no honor among thieves, it is said. And bad guys can't count on bad animals, as drug dealers in widely dispersed parts of the world discovered recently. Luckily for the law-abiding among us, it's hard to know exactly how much to feed your animal employees to ensure their loyalty:

-In Canada, overfeeding bears with the munchies proved to be a bad strategy:

A pair of marijuana growers in Western Canada appear to have been using bears to protect their illegal crop, but the well-fed animals proved to be a bit lax in their guard duties, police said on Wednesday...

Officers were initially worried the bears might be dangerous, but quickly realized the animals were actually very docile and content just to sit around as the marijuana was seized, police said in a news release.

-And in Italy, going too far in the other direction backfired:

Police raiding a drug den in the Italian capital have been confronted by an aggressive albino python which was used to intimidate addicts.

Police had been tipped off that they would find "an animal" during the raid on the apartment in the centre of Rome, and when they opened the door they saw a striped yellow and white snake curled up on a heat mat.

The snake, which was three metres long and was kept hungry so that it would be more aggressive, was allowed to roam the apartment to scare addicts into paying for their drugs, police said.

Animal services were called to capture the snake, which was tempted into captivity using a whole chicken and sent to a nearby zoo.

Albino python with no known connection to the drug trade by Flickr user Tambako the Jaguar.

Bears going too far

The bear problem continues across the nation. Last week, among other ursine crimes, we saw a black bear in New Hampshire that broke into a house and swiped some fruit, although it had second thoughts about the teddy bear it tried to liberate. But a bear in Montana has taken the problem to a new level. Nearly three weeks of widespread break-ins climaxed in this brazen attack:

Red Lodge resident Marek Rosin said he awoke last Thursday at about 1:30 a.m. when the bear pushed open the door to his back porch and began raiding his chest freezer.

"He was about four feet from me with his head in the freezer munching on a pizza," Rosin said. "It was almost comical if it wouldn’t have been that close."

Rosin scared the bear off before it could do any damage, other than to the one "supreme" pizza.

This has got to be stopped! It's one thing stealing our produce and stuffed toys, but frozen pizza is a different issue entirely.



Shocking photo by Flickr user MNicoleM

Bad Bear Roundup

A grizzly that killed a camper near Yellowstone National Park this past week, convicted on the basis of DNA evidence, got the death penalty. The bear's cubs received a much lesser sentence of life in a zoo without parole.

However, this triumph of justice shouldn't distract us from the rash of lesser crimes committed by bears who have gone unpunished.

In Colorado, police received a call in the middle of the night about a car making a commotion, with the horn honking and something going on inside.

When the car's owners were awaked, they were surprised to find the vehicle missing from their driveway. They were even more surprised when they found that the thief was not human:

Somehow, the bear had either opened the unlocked back door or pushed a window down to get inside. Understandably agitated, it bumped into the horn repeatedly and eventually knocked the car's gear into neutral. The Toyota rolled down the hill. The door added to the bear's indignity by closing at some point during the ordeal.

Amazingly, three police authorities decided that the best thing to do was help the culprit escape. Being careful to take photos first, they tied a rope to the door and opened it from a safe distance. The bear thanked them in ways that will not surprise readers of this blog:

It left a foul-smelling "present" on the front seat.

The Toyota was trashed, with its air bags, seats and stereo torn to shreds. It's a total loss.

Don't be too quick to assume from those two stories that at least you're safe from bears inside your house. One family was fortunate to learn this lesson the easy way when a bear invaded their home for a meal and had second thoughts about abducting what he may have believed was a relative:

A New Hampshire mother said her two young sons learned an important lesson about leaving the outside door open after a black bear walked into their kitchen and ate two pears and a bunch of grapes and took a drink from the family fishbowl.

On its way out of the Laconia house, the real bear grabbed a stuffed bear, said resident Mary Beth Parkinson. The stuffed animal was found in the family's back yard, next to a box of Goldfish crackers.

Other animals were also fortunate not to suffer too badly from the family's lax security:

She said she arrived in time to save the fish.
"There was one fish left in here (and) one flipping on the counter," Parkinson said.

Photo of the only kind of bears that belong in a car by Flickr user Caro's Lines; cartoon via Houston Chronicle.

Bad News Briefs

We can hardly keep up with the deluge of bad animal news lately:

In Alaska, a polar bear sick of being put on a pedestal by nature enthusiasts let three photographers off with just a warning by stealing their tripod. It's not clear that they got the message, as the man who took the picture above seemed to find the whole thing amusing:

"It was a great surprise when one bear picked up the tripod. When he walked off with it we couldn't stop laughing and joking as he had selected the most expensive."

In Nepal, hundreds of students waiting for the results of exams told that their papers, allegedly safely under lock and key at the police station, had been eaten by rats.

And in England, mail delivery has been halted to a woman in Leeds because delivery workers have been repeatedly attacked by her cat. The cat is apparently not only vicious but also deceptive: He's putting on such a good act the rest of the time, that its owner is convinced that the attack stories are impossible:

She said: "Tiger is 19 years old, he dribbles when he sleeps and snores - he sleeps for 20 hours a day... If Tiger climbs up a tree he is done in for the rest of the week. I find it really hard to believe."

Embarassment drives bear to murder

This blog tries to avoid the kind of bad animal behavior that ends up with people being actually dead, and you probably don't want to click on the link if you don't like gory details. But this story seemed too significant to pass up.

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday.

In the incident, which happened Thursday, the 5-year-old animal killed the circus administrator, Dmitry Potapov, and mauled an animal trainer, who was attempting to rescue him.

"The incident occurred during a rehearsal by the Russian state circus company troupe which was performing in Bishkek with the program, Bears on Ice," Ministry of Culture and Information director Kurmangazy Isanayev told reporters...

After the incident, the circus was cordoned off by police and emergency service workers. Experts have been brought in to examine the bear, which was shot and died at the scene.

Russia has a long-standing tradition of training bears to perform tricks such as riding motorcycles, ice skating, and playing hockey. Fatal attacks are unusual.

We don't usually take the animals' side here, but all I can say is, I don't know how these bears dress for the show, but if I thought they were going to make ME wear one of those ice skating tutus in public, I might bite someone's leg off too.


Buy the skating bear pictured at Kat's Creations, and then for the love of God give the poor thing a t-shirt and some blue jeans.

Car thief turns out to be a bear

There is nothing I can add to this headline, this photo, or this story from the Denver Post.

The car alarm was blaring, and there was a light moving around inside.

A couple in the Colorado Mountain Estates subdivision near Florissant thought someone was trying to steal their car early Wednesday.

When deputies from the Teller County Sheriff's Office responded at about 2:30 a.m., they discovered a young bear in the car.

The bear was as surprised to see the deputies as the deputies were to see the bear, said Mikel Baker, spokesperson for the Sheriff's Office.

One of the two deputies took some pictures of the bear, opened the car door, and the bear was gone in a flash, said Baker.

According to Baker and Teller County Sheriff Kevin Dougherty, this bear — like so many others — was very smart and had learned how to open car doors.

But as the bear rummaged around the car causing extensive damage, the door closed and it couldn't figure how to get out.

The light the couple saw moving in the car was the dome light of the vehicle, which momentarily wrapped around the bear's head, said Dougherty.

Baker said that bears are extremely hungry as they prepare for hibernation. No food should be left in a car, she said, as bruins, with their keen sense of smell, will detect the food and try to get inside.

In recent years, one bear practically destroyed a car after yogurt was left in it. Afterward, investigators found yogurt smeared throughout the car, said Baker.

New Jersey bear beats up a man for his lunch, doesn't eat his veggies

AP, VERNON, N.J. – A northwestern New Jersey man said he was mugged in his driveway by a sandwich-craving bear. Henry Rouwendal said he was packing his car last Friday when he was hit from behind and knocked to the ground. He said the culprit was a black bear who took his Italian sandwich.

Rouwendal said he kicked the bear in the snout and throat.

He said the bruin made off with the bread, salami and other meats but left behind the lettuce, onions and tomatoes.

Coverage of the encounter in the NJ Star-Ledger goes into more dramatic detail:

Suddenly, Rouwendal said, something hit him from behind.

"It blind-sided me. I was on the ground and I was thinking, 'What the hell just hit me?'" said Rouwendal, who also suffered a large cut on his left temple and several deep bruises on his knee, elbow and buttocks.

Rouwendal said was knocked, face-first to the ground. When he rolled over, the bear was standing over him and then grabbed the sandwich.

"I kicked him three times in the snout and one time in the throat. I think the one in the throat got him," Rouwendal said, adding the bear started to run toward the rear of his home on Panorama Drive in the Lake Panorama section of Vernon.

Local wildlife officials - no surprise whose side they're on, I guess - make excuses for the poor hungry bear:

"At this point, it just doesn't seem we will label this as an attack on a person. ... He has no bruises, claw marks or scratches or even a ripped shirt that indicates it was a purposeful attack by the bear," said Lawrence Herrighty, deputy director of the DEP's Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Herrighty said it appears the bear went for the sandwich and not Rouwendal.

Photo of statue of bear asking more nicely for sandwich - really, a little politeness goes a long way, New Jersey bears - by Flickr user buelow.