The Big Bear Reading List
Image: Carolyn Wells
Growing up in England, my knowledge of bears largely came from Yogi Bear cartoons, and on a childhood holiday to North America, it wasn’t Disneyland, but the thought of seeing a real-life Yogi that I was most excited about. However, despite my parents stoically driving a hire car down treacherous mountain roads as I lounged in the back bemoaning the lack of performing bears, it never happened.
It wasn’t until I moved to Canada many years later that I saw my first bear. I just turned a corner and there it was, a young black bear casually munching grass, completely unphased by my open-mouthed awe. Several years on, I have seen countless black bears; in fact, they rather enjoy relieving themselves on my front lawn after overindulging in next door’s apple trees. But my childhood wonder of them remains.
BBC Science Focus Magazine In this extract from
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town, author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling explains how a sleuth of genius bears tore apart one US town. Published:
At first, the bears went unseen in the nighttime, like mischievous elves descending from the woods. But instead of mending shoes or spinning straw into gold, they cracked compost bins, tore open beehives, and licked small traces of beef tallow from backyard grills, only to disappear with the first hint of the rising sun.
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Bungtowners [residents of Burlingham, Ohio] watched uneasily as a series of raids in a century-old barn reduced a feral colony of hardy barn cats from a population of 20 to nought.