by Matthew Cobb
Yesterday we saw evidence that black bears are pretty agile. Today we can see that you really need to pay attention when they are around, as this man found in California back in 2012, as reported on local TV.
Don’t text while walking or the bears will get you
January 25, 2015 • 3:30 pm
I can read his text:
OMG!!
Guess the text wasn’t all that important. I would have liked to have seen each participant emerge calmly from the other side of the shrubbery and keep walking. Bear, teenager with a cell phone, whatever. They both got things to do, places to go, neighborhoods to wander.
I was a bit gratified though to see that the young man did bother to look up and notice something. Had it been only a dead body it might have been stepped over.
Ha ha! Good thing he saw the bear!
I think bears just looks so cuddly. Too bad they would maul and eat you. If I had a job where I tagged bears, I’d cuddle and kiss them before they woke up.
The bear would wake up & think, “yuck, I’m covered in that gross human smell again! How does this keep happening when I get suddenly drowsy!”
Bells and pepper spray.
A lot of parents are going to want to rent that bear.
During a nightly jog down an old, unlit Carolina road, I was surprised by an unidentified beast. With a similar reaction to the video’s victim, I sprung across the pavement to the other side of a ditch. Looking back I saw a harmless deer with an expression equivalent to my own. I’m convinced we were both relieved the other wasn’t a hungry bear.
On a riding trip, early fall, I pulled into a campground in the mountains right on the NC / TN border just as day light was fading. It was a small campground on a very steep slope, no roads or paths, too steep to drive on, no prepared camp sites, just park at the bottom, hike up and pitch a tent. They did have a few tiny cabins, and I was hoping to get one because I had no camping gear. There was only one left, up at the top edge of the campground.
But, the proprietor warned, there is a bear that likes to hang out at this cabin, so most people won’t rent it. I don’t think he’d bother you, but. . .
The cabin was great, I could see why the bear liked it. I didn’t bother him and he didn’t bother me, though we did indeed run into each other a few times. Good thing too. I had a badly sprained ankle at the time and moving around on that rocky slope was nearly impossible for me so I wasn’t going anywhere quickly.
Well the important thing is, he hung onto his phone.
🐻
I think I might have told this story here before. While coming back from a hike on Mt. Seymour, we were following a trail that had been covered with log chips. My friend and I were together but the ladies had gotten quite a bit ahead of us. We became aware that someone had been spilling liquid on the trail, making a wide serpentine mark on the chips. It went on for quite some distance. 50 feet? As we rounded a turn, we could see the large black male bear up ahead, walking, swaying and pissing all at the same time.
Our warning shouts also got the attention of the bear which headed off into the woods. The women didn’t see it and claimed we were just trying to pull their legs and no they weren’t going to go back and see the evidence.
Never get in a pissing contest with a big black bear. You’ll lose.
Now, if the bear had had the cell phone…
OT, but to everyone on the East Coast: Hope you stay safe and warm tomorrow! It’s gonna be a big bear of a storm.
Beware!
That was hilarious! 😀 LOL! He didn’t half move when he saw that bear.
I wish there were big land animals in the UK besides cattle and sheep. I’d love to walk down the street and see a bear coming the other way, provided it wasn’t too hungry or an overprotective mother.
I posted below before I saw this.
I bet you didn’t know this happens in London, too:
Lines And Squares
Whenever I walk in a London street,
I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, “Bears,
Just look how I’m walking in all the squares!”
And the little bears growl to each other, “He’s mine,
As soon as he’s silly and steps on a line.”
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It’s ever so portant how you walk.
And it’s ever so jolly to call out, “Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!”
A.A. Milne
Hopefully bears of little brain;-)