Yet Another Bear Dies Unnecessarily
Freakonomics Blog » What’s It Cost to Kill a Bear?
1. A suburban Atlanta man named Chris Everhart, a former Marine who now works as a technician for AT&T, took his three sons on their first camping trip.2. As the four Everharts were roasting marshmallows, a bear started sniffing around their food cooler. The youngest boy, 6-year-old Logan, picked up a shovel and went after the bear.
1. Since this event apparently occurred in Georgia, the bear in question would have been a black bear. Black bears are well known to be essentially timid.
2. The picture Stephen Dubner has posted on the Freaknomics web site to accompany this post is of a grizzly bear — not a black bear. Grizzly bears are quite different from black bears.
3. If I had a 6-year-old kid who picked up a shovel and threatened a bear with it, that kid would be lucky if I didn’t smack him with a heavy piece of wood. Alright… kidding, kidding. You have to read the entire post on Freakonomics to get what I’m talking about here.
4. Black bears don’t growl. They just don’t. They may make a low-pitched whining noise when they’re frightened (as, it turns out, this particular black bear had good reason to be), but they don’t growl — not like the bear-killer in this story claims this bear did.
5. According to the news story, people in the area had reported seeing a bear with three cubs. The bear this dickweed killed was a large female. So, it’s entirely likely that he not only killed this one bear but also three young cubs who were reliant on her for care.
The bear in this story didn’t deserve to be killed and, had the people (who stupidly hadn’t kept their food covered up) known even a little about black bears, they might have had enough sense to realize that, very likely, all they would have had to do to scare the bear away was to shout at it.
So. Another black bear killed by another stupid asshole.
I hate people.
Posted by RebeccaHartong on June 28, 2007 under Uncategorized
I saw what looked to be a bobcat very early in the morning on the hike and bike trail, actually off the trail in the shrubbery. It was amazing. He looked at me and my little dog like he was so curious. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Then I decided I better leave. I knew he wouldn’t attack, but then again he looked at my little dog like “What in the world is that?” Anyone else seen this bobat-type animal? I live on Glade Drive and Timberhead and just walked down the steps to the trail where there’s a wooden bench and bridge at the bottom of the hill.
I believe you said the following. “The bear in this story didn’t deserve to be killed and, had the people (who stupidly hadn’t kept their food covered up) ” Little do you know that even if covered then the bear can still smell it. Also bears do make a growling noise. May want to do a bit more research hun. Calling a protective father a dillweed, holy FUCK do you need some help!The bear in this story didn’t deserve to be killed and, had the people (who stupidly hadn’t kept their food covered up)
Hm. “Dillweed”? That doesn’t sound like me. No. I called him a dickweed. I’m amused that someone who would write “holy FUCK” would get all cutesy about “dickweed”.
Regarding bears “growling”: Please refer to this section on the web site for the North American Bear Center:
I’ve actually spent a week in northern Minnesota studying black bears with Lynn Rogers, who is one of the world’s leading experts on them. So… While I’m certainly no expert myself, I suspect I’ve got a bit firmer grasp on what black bears are really like than you do.