Many of you are probably wondering what you will do if/when you see a polar bear. There’s a Party Line, uncritically parroted by the internet and wildlife experts, that while you can charge/intimidate a black bear, polar bears are Obligate Carnivores and the only thing you can do is accept your fate.
I think this is nonsense. A potential polar bear attack can be defused just like a black bear attack. There are loads of youtube videos of people chasing Polar Bears away by making themselves seem big and aggressive, and I even found some indie documentaries of people who went to the arctic with expectations of being able to do this. The main trick seems to be to resist the urge to run away, make yourself look menacing, and commit to warning charges in the bear’s general direction until it leaves.
I can’t decide what the epistemic status of that post is, but in the same spirit, here’s how to tell the difference between a brown bear and a grizzly. Climb a tree. A brown bear will climb up after you and eat you, while a grizzly will knock down the tree and eat you.
I believe the intended message of the “fight back, lay down, goodnight” maxim is “Thou shalt not generalize your experience with black bears to grizzlies!” I don’t expect there is much danger of someone asking “if not friend, why friend shaped?” of polar bears; they just fill out the Rule of Three.
It’s a lot like the “red touches yellow, he’s a friendly fellow; red touches black, you’re dead, Jack” mnemonic for snakes: people are very likely to encounter the (relatively) harmless one, and you really want them not to learn the wrong lessons from that.
Many of you are probably wondering what you will do if/when you see a polar bear. There’s a Party Line, uncritically parroted by the internet and wildlife experts, that while you can charge/intimidate a black bear, polar bears are Obligate Carnivores and the only thing you can do is accept your fate.
I think this is nonsense. A potential polar bear attack can be defused just like a black bear attack. There are loads of youtube videos of people chasing Polar Bears away by making themselves seem big and aggressive, and I even found some indie documentaries of people who went to the arctic with expectations of being able to do this. The main trick seems to be to resist the urge to run away, make yourself look menacing, and commit to warning charges in the bear’s general direction until it leaves.
I can’t decide what the epistemic status of that post is, but in the same spirit, here’s how to tell the difference between a brown bear and a grizzly. Climb a tree. A brown bear will climb up after you and eat you, while a grizzly will knock down the tree and eat you.
I believe the intended message of the “fight back, lay down, goodnight” maxim is “Thou shalt not generalize your experience with black bears to grizzlies!” I don’t expect there is much danger of someone asking “if not friend, why friend shaped?” of polar bears; they just fill out the Rule of Three.
It’s a lot like the “red touches yellow, he’s a friendly fellow; red touches black, you’re dead, Jack” mnemonic for snakes: people are very likely to encounter the (relatively) harmless one, and you really want them not to learn the wrong lessons from that.
Your snake mnemonic is not the standard one and gives an incorrect, inverted result. Was that intentional?
This is a coral snake, which is dangerously venomous:
This is a king snake, which is totally harmless unless you’re a vole or something:
The mnemonic I’ve heard is “red and yellow, poisonous fellow; red and black, friend of Jack”
I guess the point of the official party line is to avoid kids going and trying to scare polar bears.
As opposed to other species of bear, which are safe for children to engage with?
Teddy bears.
Now that I think about it, maybe teddy bears teach our kids some really dangerous habits.
There are too many nonpolar bears in the US to keep up the lie.