I'm an animal freak. Specifically, I'm a bear freak. I'm not the type of freak that will go live in the woods with them, claiming some sort of affinity that may or may not keep me from being eaten. I like their lumbering, their shaggy fur, and their large, open faces. So, occasionally, I will post bear stories.
Like this:
Berlin bear's break-out bid fails
A bold amphibious escape bid by a bear at Berlin zoo has been foiled in a dramatic shoot-out.
Juan the Andean spectacled bear first paddled across a moat using a log for a raft, then scaled a wall. Finally he appeared to commandeer a bicycle, before zookeepers with brooms cornered him, and a colleague picked him off with a tranquiliser gun.
"Just think what could have happened," said a mother who saw the bear escape and head for the children's carousel.
"It went straight for the playground", said Liane Hertrampf to the Berliner Kurier newspaper. Parents grabbed their children and fled as they realised what was happening.
But the zoo's deputy director Heiner Kloes was not so concerned.
"Spectacled bears eat both vegetables and meat but children tend not to be on their menu," he said.
"I'd have been a lot more worried if one of our polar bears had escaped," he added.
He did say, however, that he was "alarmed at how some fathers were too busy filming the bear to check where their children were".
The picture that accompanies this article, by the way, is priceless. Go Juan, go!
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