polar bears are really quite terrifying
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Yup - some of them sure can be. They like to target a specific bit of prey and will stalk it for days if need be. Not good for you if you're on the tundra and one of them decides you're a tasty morsel. Sorta like having a big white shaggy terminator following you.
STORY TIME!
2 stories come to mind about bears that occurred during my Zoo Internship in the late 80s early 90s when i was studying Veterinary medicine. I'll leave out names to protect the foolish -hehe.
It's X-Mas morning - the zoo's director gets a call on his phone and tears off still in his bath robe. Apparently the dry moat in the polar bear exhibit got clogged with eucalyptus leaves and filled up. The female polar bear swam across found purchase on the far wall and simply hoisted herself free of the exhibit. She made her merry way through the zoo and straight for the exit for the park, golf range and residential neighborhoods beyond that.
So the director arrives - hooks up with the carnivore keeper on duty - they open up the weapons locker - break out the tranq-gun and start to track her.
Of course all this sounds very dramatic - until you learn that they're tracking her in the keepers 1968 VW Beetle. Across the golf course.. With the Director on the side board - literally riding shotgun - wearing only his flip flop slippers and bathrobe thats flapping in the breeze.
The female polar bear isn't one of those mighty ones from the wild but a rather skinny version you see in captivity - heh. But she does see them and recognize them. And boy she can run.
She bolts like a bad dog, tearing across the golf course in the middle of winter. Bears can really move FAAST when they want to.
"POP!" a dart in her big white hiney. And down she goes in whats.. well a debilitating acid trip.. they call 'em tranquilizers - but you don't wanna know whats in those things - lol.
Happy ending - she gets hauled back & nobody's hurt.
Story 2
A zoo I wasn't at - but got told this as one of a hundred, "you'd better learn from this" stories they tell you. Lest something eat part of your hand or get one of your eyes or kill you outright or something. Not that I didn't get my fair share of scars. lol
A Kodiak gets loose at this particular zoo.. Oh - at about a quarter past noon no less. People everywhere.. This bear's first wish with freedom - find the Veterinarians and the Carnivore Keepers and give em payback. So he goes through the crowds of people - into the nearby offices glaring at secretaries, docents and grounds keepers. Its stomping through the grounds looking for the folks on his personal 'hit list'
The Senior Carnivore keeper comes flying to meet the Kodiak driving... whats essentially a mighty golf cart laden high with stacks of frozen vitamin fortified horse meat.
The Bear rises up on 2 legs finally going, "YOU!" with his body language. Poor keeper abandons his cart - only to realize he's stopped in an open space, the only shelter there IS his cart. So he and the bear go around and round - clockwise - counter clockwise - clockwise again around that little cart.
Turns out the guys with the keys to the weapons locker are across the street eating Tai food - radios turned off. Doh. Luckily they're not far away and someone got to them fast. The bear was secured in record time. But it must have felt like an eternity for the poor keeper going round and round that little cart. A big olde bear with a bad disposition chasing him left, then right going in circles.
Needless to say i much prefer game development where the closest thing next to a bear might be a big unwashed hairy guy a few cubes over who's had too many bell peppers and onions on his pizza. *waves hand in front of nose
Cathat
