[FreedomPoster]

Bear ping.

[af_vet_1981]

Bears roam free on the island and are rarely aggressive, the reserve's director Leonid Bove said, adding that the woman most likely provoked the animal

just like the woman in Colorado provoked Kobe.

[jrp]

Portable Bear Medicine

[Psycho_Bunny]

the woman most likely provoked the animal.

Bull%$#.  

She grew up there.  Her people had lived there for Lord-knows how many generations and she didn't know how to act around the indigenous wildlife?

Do environmentalists have to lie about everything?  Just freaking admit that polar bears are polar bears you piece of liberal crap "biologist".

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

If my memory is correct did not the US discover and claim the Wrangel Islands? Did not the Soviets invade and take control of the Islands under Stalin's rule? Can we blame this on bush? So many questions, so little time!

[Pelham]

"Vasilina Alpaun, suffering from laryngitis, was set upon by an angry mob of Ursine-Vrangellians who demanded a pound of flesh when she wouldn't sing to them...

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Wonder what's really going on on that island that they need to replace the native population with wild animals.

[Charles Henrickson]

. . . the woman most likely provoked the animal.

She hit it on the nose with a microphone?

[Charles Henrickson]

. . . the woman most likely provoked the animal.

Painted the darn thing purple. Now the poor animal is behind bars:

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Bears roam free on the island and are rarely aggressive, the reserve's director Leonid Bove said, adding that the woman most likely provoked the animal.

Hmm, sounds to me like the reserve's director propogated the myth that the bears are harmless, thus allowing the bears to pluck off the residents one by one. Now the reserve has the island all to itself. :)

[paulklenk]

Reminds me of a story:

An explorer came out of the jungle, to find a humungous elephant dead in the middle of the clearing. Standing next to the elephant was a pygmy, pleased as pie.

"Did you kill that elephant?" he asked the pygmy.

"Yes, I did," said the pygmy.

"That's amazing! How did I little guy like you kill such a huge elephant?"

"With my club," said the pygmy.

"Wow, that must be a big club!" said the explorer.

"Yeah, there are about sixty of us," replied the pygmy.

[paulklenk]

True story: When I worked in Glacier National Park, we had to be careful of bears when hiking. To condition the bears and warn them in advance of human presence, we were advised to wear large jingle bells that you could hear coming from a distance. We called these 'bear bells,' and they were available in our gift shop.

Legend had it that a tourist once asked the shop clerk, "How do you get them bells on them bears?"

[Fledermaus]

Will we soon see the novel "The Last of the Ushakovskoye"?

[OESY]

The bear was probably just exacting revenge for the abuse they have all suffered at the hands of John West, the salmon thief. No bear, polar or other shade, likes to be punched in the stomach, or kicked in the groin while being tricked into looking for an eagle. Adding insult to injury, West eluded the bear's kung fu kicks before stealing off. Very provocative!

Click for John West download

[rabidralph]

It's her fault for dressing so provocatively.

[ZULU]

"...the reserve's director Leonid Bove said, adding that the woman most likely provoked the animal."

Hmmmm. And I thought only American liberals had that kind of mental virus.

[ZULU]

Of all species of bears, the polar bear is the most carnivorous, the most aggressive, and the one most likely to view humans as just another protein source.

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

Don't believe it. It is a cover up by the KGP or whatever they're called now. It will be a ICBM site before it will be a wildlife refuge.

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

News from Russia
An unusually large number of polar bears congregated on Wrangel Island last fall, with up to sixty bears at a time gathered on the spit known as Cape Blossom. "The sea ice disappeared in September and remained ice-free well into November," reports Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov. "This led to an exciting adventure season, with interesting behavioral material."

Ovsyanikov adds that the fall was also unusual for the large proportion of male bears and a marked reduction in the walrus population. In past years, walruses counts in the nature reserve have reached into the thousands, with 60,000 recorded in 1990--and 10,000 hauled out on the beach at any one time.

"By the beginning of September, I observed only about 300 walruses near the spit, which was the largest number for the entire season," he says. "Later, there were only several dozen for a very short time, and no hauling out activity. Apparently the main herd passed the island farther out at sea."

Because the stranded bears found no walruses on which to feed, Ovsyanikov reports that they spent a great deal of time just wandering around. "They were not focused on the walrus rookery, they were spread around and actively looking for anything edible," he says. "Due to that I had a number of bears approaching the cabin and the camp."

In other news, Ovsyanikov has been working with mainland officials in Chukotka on a program to minimize human-bear conflicts. And he and Reserve Director Leonid Bove have completed a proposal to expand the protection granted to polar bears in the Wrangel Island Nature Reserve to include the coastal mainland.

PBI has supported polar bear research on Wrangel Island since 1995.

[witnesstothefall]

Polar bears are never aggressive but often hungry.