"Beary" Interesting

This morning right as I was getting ready to go out the door for my walk, the Today Show (I know, I have referred to that before--but I learn a lot from that morning show!)had a guy on talking about the black bear. I quickly DVR'd it as I was curious about what he had to say. I grew up in the great northwoods of Wisconsin and was fairly familar with bears as they are very common up there.

Once I got home and sat down with my bowl of oatmeal and blueberries,(can you tell I'm trying to drop 20 pounds?) I watched the segment. This gentleman is hosting a program on the black bear for Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." He explains how he learned that there are many misconceptions about the bear. He goes on to say, "When a bear has an occasional bluster, it just means they are nervous. We came to interpret bear behavior in terms of their fear, not ours."

Hmmm-that was interesting...I assume "bluster" means growl? Ok, so say a bear meets me in the woods; he gets nervous and growls...I guess I can relate to that because I would certainly feel nervous myself. I could also possibly end up exuding some type of primal noise due to hyper-ventilating! It would be interesting to see who would scare who the most after that "sound exchange." I remember my Mom telling me to just yell loudly if I were to see a bear, as that would scare them. However, as of late I have heard more than a few stories of bears up north chasing humans up a tree and no amount of noise seemed to scare them away! Maybe it just depends on the bear, or the mood it is in that day, huh? Could be!

I have given it a little more thought, and maybe this guy actually does know what he's talking about! Think about the story of The 3 Bears; the bears are the good guys, and poor Goldilocks is the intruder that takes advantage of their home...and then they "bluster" about her being in their bed!
Makes you think a little differently about bears now, doesn't it?

Have a good week:)