Four People Arrested for Using Bear Suit to Fake Bear Attacks on Their Vehicles and Claim Insurance
Four Los Angeles-area residents were recently arrested and charged with insurance fraud after allegedly using a bear suit to make it seem like their luxury vehicles had been damaged by a wild animal. “Operation Bear Claw,” as this ingenious insurance fraud scheme was subbed by California authorities, began in January of this year, when the […]
Brain Condition Causes Bear Cubs to Become Unusually Friendly to Humans
A number of black bear cubs in California have been exhibiting unusually friendly, dog-like behavior around humans, and scientists believe a brain illness may be to blame. Last month, California Department of Fish and Wildlife picked up a bear cub from a residential backyard. The animal had simply moved in there and didn’t seem to […]
Zoo Keeper Who Lost Her Leg to a Bear Begs That the Animal Be Pardoned
Wild animals usually get put down after attacking humans, but a Russian zoo keeper who lost one of her legs to a caged bear has been pleading with authorities to spare the animal, claiming that it wasn’t to blame for the tragic accident. On September 25, experienced zoo keeper and animal activist Vera Blishch was […]
Turkish Beekeeper Enlists Thieving Bears as Honey Testers
İbrahim Sedef, an experienced beekeeper from Turkey’s Black Sea Region, has come up with an ingenious way of having his honey tested by the same bears that used to steal it. Agricultural engineer and beekeeper İbrahim Sedef had been struggling to deal with thieving bears for over four months, but nothing worked. When he tried […]
Meet Katya, the Brown Bear Serving a Life Sentence in a Kazakh Prison
Katya, a 36-year-old brown bear, is the only prisoner at the UK-161/2 penal colony in Kostanay, Kazakhstan, to be serving a life sentence. Ironically, even killers imprisoned here have sentences of no longer than 25 years. So what could a bear do to end up in prison? Well, Ekaterina, or Katya as most of the 730 inmates […]
Chinese Family Shocked After Pet “Puppy” Turns Out to Be a Bear
A family in Yunan Province, China, recently had to give up the pet puppy they had bought two years ago after it grew into a 250lbs black bear. Su Yun, who lives near the city of Kunming, bought the animal two years ago, while on vacation. At the time, she thought she had paid for […]
Brown Bear Armed with Two Guns Is Apparently on the Loose in Siberia
What comes to mind when you think of Siberia? Maybe vast expanses of snow-covered land, teeth-chattering cold, Lake Baikal, and the Tunguska meteorite mystery. How about gun-totting brown bears? One such animal recently gave a hunter quite the fright, but more importantly, took off with the man’s bag, which happened to contain two firearms. The […]
Russian Couple Share Their Home with a Full-Grown Brown Bear
Svetlana and Yuriy Panteleenko seem like a perfectly average family, but that’s until they introduce you to their 23-year-old adopted son, Stepan, a 300-lb brown bear. The unlikely family do almost everything together, right from playing in the backyard, to cuddling and watching TV on the sofa. Stepan was just three months old when the Panteleenkos […]
Too Many People Are Taking Selfies with Bears, US Forest Service Warns
Apparently, the temptation to click a selfie with a large, furry (and dangerous) bear in the background is simply too hard to resist for some people. An alarmingly large number of tourists at South Lake Tahoe in California are taking in this latest craze despite warnings from the US Forest Service to leave the animals […]
War Veteran Uses Carpenter Ax to Kill Attacking Bear
48-year-old Blazo Grkovic has made headlines in the international media after it was reported he managed to kill a bear in combat using only a small carpenter’s ax and his bear bare hands. The incident occurred while the brave Herzegovian was herding his flock of sheep on the edge of a forest at the foot […]
Finnish Bear Won’t Hibernate Unless He Is Tucked-In
Juuso, a large brown bear from the Predator Animal Center, in Finland, only agreed to crawl into his shelter and hibernate, after his best friend tucked him in. With winter drawing ever nearer, Juuso, a young brown bear from Finland’s Predator Center, seemed tired. All the other bears had already began their winter hibernation, and […]
Bear-Shaped Sleeping Bag by Eiko Ishizawa
We all know sleeping in a bear-inhabited forest can be pretty hazardous to your health. That’s what artists Eiko Ishizawa was thinking when she designed her Bear Sleeping-Bag. Unless you take all the necessary precautions, like wrap the food and hang it in a tree as far away as you can, chances are you’re going […]
The Blonde Black Bear
Well, it’s not exactly the blonde we’re used to, but it’s as blonde as a black bear can get. Known as a Spirit Bear or Kermode Bear, this polar-bear look-alike was thought to exist only in Indian mythology. Brave photographer Steven Kazlowski took some photos of a Spirit Bear, an achievement considered impossible among wildlife […]