The Teddy Bear Syndrome
August 30, 2006
All bears are cuddly little creatures that humans should take home with them and tuck them into bed with their children at night. This is the picture that has been painted in the brains of people for decades. It is often called the Disney Syndrome or the Disney Affect. Some just can’t get it through their heads that some animals, like the bear, as beautiful as it can be and as gentle as it may appear, can be a deadly killer.
Here is a brief letter to the editor I stumbled across this morning from a reader who thinks bears are cute and cuddly and of course they couldn’t complete their rant without calling all hunters cowards. So what else is new?
On a recent visit to my daughter in Vernon, I had the incredible opportunity to see a black bear for the first time. I was amazed at how gentle this creature was. In the one minute it took for her to slowly walk through the backyard, I could not take my eyes off of her. At no time was I ever afraid or felt threatened in any way. Thank you to the BEAR Group for working so hard to educate the public and for their extraordinary efforts in protecting these animals from hunting. The hunters should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who would kill one of these gentle and beautiful bears just for fun is a worthless coward who obviously cannot feel like a man unless he is killing a defenseless animal.
Makes you wonder what the BEAR Group is teaching people.
Tom Remington
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Though the teddy bear was named after Teddy Roosevelt, its sole and original purpose was to comfort little children. Kids feared bears back at the turn of the century more than they do today. During that time parents began getting their kids cute toy bears and I am sure saying things like, “it’s ok, bears won’t get you.”
Momentarily it works great and soothes the child but long-term effects are amazing. People really believe bears are cute and friendly and harmless. Like you said, once Disney intervened and told stories about Winnie the Pooh and Yogi Bear it became ingrained in all of us that bears were not as bad as the legends had talked about in the past.
In return, this has caused a fearless nation of bear lovers. But it the same runs true with other things that attempt to desensitize the truth to children in order to soothe and comfort them. I don’t care, we shouldn’t have lied to our children. We should have told our children from the start, “YES” bears can kill you. Though it may frighten them, isn’t that a natural process of learning the true environment in which we live? A way of survival?
Not to go off on a tangent but children seem like a great candidate to lie and bend the truth. Though all in fun at the time, it can lead to not just a person who is misled but a nation.
We are reaping what we sow.
The North American Bear Education Center in Ely Minnesota, started by Lynn Rogers, who has studied the black bear for 38 years is dispelling your macho rationale for killing this playful, intelligent, beautiful being. You are indeed cowards to kill a non-aggressive animal that is just trying to live with us. Human violence is an abomination on this planet, especially at this time of human caused habitat loss and climate change and species going extinct because of human activity. If you go to the Bear Education Center web site, Lynn Rogers clearly states that we have taken a timid animal that is afraid (for good reasons – with the dogs, bait, high tech equipment and cruelty with which you MEASURE a bear for your manhood) and lied about its nature. It is truly pathetic. Posing bears in hostile postures when they are just grazers that happen to be large and furry – is a MEASURE of your LACK of manhood. GOOD men are compassionate – not dominant and violent. Hunting was harvested with the old frontier. Your recreational slaughter for ego and heads on walls to try to grasp at manhood is a mockery. Lynn Rogers, in 38 years of dealing with these magnificent animals, touts the bears’ remarkable grace and RESTRAINT with humans. Even picking up squalling cubs in front of their mothers, Lynn has never been injured by a black bear in his 38 years of intensive studies. He says we have taken a timid animal and made it into a Halloween monster. I documented the comments of a homicide detective who followed a small bear, dead in the back of a pick-up truck into a registration station. While the men were registering the bear, he examined it. It had eleven arrow holes and bite marks all over its small body. He said that it was obvious that the bear had not died a humane death. He asked the men about it. They said, “the bear ran from the dogs who caught up with it – then when the bear got away, it treed. They shot the bear with arrows, and he fell, so we let the dogs have some fun with it before we finished killing it.” He asked what they would do with the bear. They said – “Oh – it’s too small – we’ll throw it in the trash.” In fact, two -thirds of the bears that will be killed in the bloodbath in Wisconsin going on right now will be babies born this spring or yearlings born last spring. Others will be orphaned and die anyway. These are DNR statistics. Unmanly, inhuman, and a crime against nature. As the bear man of Kamchatka said, “man can kill bears until the cows come home, but a bear defending itself is not tolerated at all. …wildlife agencies have managed wildlife for profit, and what these men know of bears is a wild creature running away in terror.” You are cowards of the worst sort. I pity you that you will die with no true appreciation of the beauty of our fellow creatures – and you will die. One more observation: I was on the captive bear and cougar committee for Wisconsin. A man who had been a bear hunter had turned to take in some bear cubs and truly loves them and honors them. I asked him what changed him. He said, “I found out that I was really interested in the bears, and I did not learn anything once they were dead in the back of my truck.” I dare you to print this one for your abusive ridicule – but then it is all you know.
P.R.
Are you by chance totally anti-hunting and a vegan as well. I’m glad your friend has played with bears for 38 years with no accidents, that’s quite a string, especially picking up cubs with mama around. Doing that is like playing with fire, eventually he’ll get burned. It will be 100% his fault if he does, not the bears fault by any means. Remeber Treadwell, I watched his documentries on bears and not one hunter I know thought he would live long. Yea, grizzlies are different than Blacks but Blacks have he same abilities to cause harm or even kill. There wild animals and you can never fully trust a wild animal.Black bears are very prolific and their numbers are increasing just about everywhere. How about worrying about some animals that actually need your help. Condors, Wolverines, pygmy rabbits, lynx, etc. etc. etc.
Pat says bears are “just grazers that happen to be large and furry”….I’m wondering if she thinks bears don’t eat meat…or people…She seems to believe man is responsible for “climate change”, as well….. As WC Fields once said, “they’re a sucker born every minute”……Some people still don’t know what a “sucker” is…..
If this man actually did follow these men to the check in station I have some questions;
1. How did he happen to see the bear cub in the pick up bed ?
2. How did he manage to count 11 arrow wounds under the fur ?
3. Is any of this documented on film for me to verify it is not gossip ?
4. If it is documented what state was it in, Wisconsin, if it is true why did he not have the men arrested for wanton wasting of a big game animal ?
5. Where is the file of charges and fines for this crime, admitted to at a game check point ?
6. Were any dogs cut up by arrows protruding from the bear cub, or bite wounds from the bear cub which according to your comment was left alive for a time for the very expensive and valuable dogs trained specially to tree bears which according to you were recklessly used for this torture prior to finishing off the bear ?
7. Have you ever won a bullshitting contest ?
The extra risking of damage to highly trained dogs, which are of great value, any where from $1500 to $4000 In a orchestrated fight with a wounded black bear blows her bs story for me, the death of one of those dogs or even thousands in vet bills is stupid just for little a giggle, and to confess this along with ” its to small we are going to throw it in the trash” at a game check point, is also stupid. They would have been sited on the spot and later charged.
I’ve been on many of these outings and if the bear is sow with cubs, a cub, the dogs are caught up, and we left.. leaving the sow or cubs or cub alone.
This is just pure propaganda by this idiot, and even if some dip shits do this nonsense, it is rare. And even hunters, and hounds men would find such behavior by some one doing this unacceptable. She has tossed the entire practice and everyone who participates in this practice in the same barrel, and it is a pack of lies.
Obviously this fool has no experience in the outdoors, other than a once a year REI outing in a tame place, two weeks at best.
Good luck with the “grazing” Patti. If my horse had teeth like your bear for “grazing”, he would have starved by now.
How do bears eat berries – one at time I guess? Pass me a napkin, please