The history of my interest in bears was, until recently, confined to “Rupert Bear” when I was child (a stuffed animal), and various National Geographic documentaries I have watched. It was raised to some prominence when a neighbor of mine, in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, regularly took his small black pet bear for a walk around the city on a leash. In recent years, the plight of the polar bears, in the face of global warming and the shrinking pack ice in the Arctic, has been a regular topic on Public Television documentaries. However, it wasn’t until I encountered a large black bear in our back yard in Colorado that the subject became much more personal. I was therefore more than interested in a recently-published book, by Gloria Dickie, entitled “Eight Bears: Mythical Past and Imperilled Future”.
The author states that there are just eight bear species, compared with 41 types of felines and 500 types of primates. I had no idea! However, experts predict, and Ms. Dickie states, that only three bear species are likely to thrive past the end of this century; black bears, American brown bears, and pandas. AND pandas are only on this list because the Chinese Government has finally begun to take panda preservation seriously – there are currently fewer than 2,000 in existence.
Historically, the interaction of bears and humans has ranged from King Haakon IV of Norway giving a polar bear to Henry III of England in 1252, to bear-baiting in Elizabethan England, and the advent of Paddington Bear in the 1950s: The polar bear given to Henry III reportedly spent its days swimming and fishing in the River Thames, which must have caused a sensation among the local population of humans.
Bears are remarkably intelligent, which, on reflection, is rather a stupid statement on my part – why should I have assumed they weren’t? Example: taking our dog for a walk early one morning last year, my partner noticed that a neighbor’s car had all its doors open. She called him, and he came rushing out, but had no idea why the doors were open. Eventually, he sheepishly admitted that he left a cheesecake inside, and that he never locked his car doors. It turned out that bears have learned to open car doors with their tongues when they smell something interesting inside.
In another example, our local garbage collection company designed bins that “are animal proof”. I watched a bear, on the day of the weekly garbage collection when he/she knew it was full (Yes he/she knew it was Thursday night/Friday morning), calmly tip the large bin over on its side, pick it up on one corner and bang it on the ground at exactly the right spot so that the “Bear-proof” lid popped open. He/she then proceeded to take out a garbage bag, drag it over to my neighbor’s porch, rip it open, and enjoy breakfast.
One final example: A couple of years ago, I was looking out of our picture window just after dark and saw something moving. It was a large black bear, which would have been taller than me standing up. He meandered down the staircase from the road above, sniffed around a small water reservoir that is part of an artificial rock stream I made, and then meandered back up the way he(?) had come. It wasn’t until my partner told me that she used to have a fish pond there, with Koi fish in it that had names, that we realized he(?) had been there before……the pond had been removed over ten years earlier.
Bears are on the decline in many parts of the world, although “ours” seem to be on the increase. Climate change and loss of habitat are the main culprits. We are gradually becoming aware of the plight of the polar bear, but this has not translated into serious concern about all eight species of these magnificent, and very intelligent, creatures. I hope these personal stories can help to change that lack of concern in some small way. Losing such animals through our self-centered lives, and pure negligence, would be a crime for which no punishment would be effective, or enough.
