Suddenly, A Polar Bear. Now What?
Because you never know when you might open your front door, only to be facing 1,500 lbs of the the world’s largest land carnivore, willing and able to kill you almost just by glancing in your general direction and then eating every part of your body that it can chew. Which is everything. Literally.
Confusingly, polar bears don’t really want to eat you. People are skinny (in the polar bear world, unless you’ve got at least 500 lbs of blubber on you, you’re skinny), and the bear likes blubber. Loves blubber. Om-nom-nom. However, if the bear is especially hungry, or annoyed, or you pissed it off, or slightly irritated it, or got to close to its kids, it might decide to simply rid the world of you. You know, just for the hell of it, and personal satisfaction. That’s just how polar bears are. So here we go – because 1,500 pounds of white violence and horrible death could be right around the corner.
So you’re going outside. Now what?
If you find yourself in an environment where polar bears thrive – which is a surprisingly slice of the globe – and you’ve decided to venture outside of your warm and cozy house/hotel room/cabin/whatnot else. There are a few things you should remember.
– Bring a gun. Or bring someone who brought a gun. Or both.
Look, just because they used to be endangered (ok, so they still are, but the sciency guys aren’t as worried anymore), that doesn’t mean there’s not a shitload of them out there. Because there are. Thousands, literally, and they’re not really that scared of you. If you encounter a bear, there’s one sentence that will save your life (maybe); Polar bears are not your friends! So if one comes hurtling at you at roughly the speed of sound, you have to be able to counter that with something worse. So bring a gun, somehow.
– Don’t get stuck outside in the dark.
No, the “Thing” isn’t coming for you just because you’re surrounded by snow. But a polar bear might, and chances are you won’t even hear it coming, since they’re surprisingly quiet for something that weighs as much as half a Volvo (and that moves as fast as one… hardy-har). If you do get stuck outside, make sure that you can see and/or hear the polar bear coming. Use flares around your camp, trip-wires and fire to provide you with both light and sound.
Oh, and bring a gun.
So there’s a polar bear over there. Now what?
– Did you bring a gun? Good. Now put it away.
Look, you can’t just shoot it because it’s there. First of all, that’d be like the bear coming to your house and eating you just because it came close to you where you live. Which is, on second thought, precisely something a polar bear might do, so nevermind that. Anyway, there’s a whole bunch of those sciency guys who will be furious with you if you pop a polar bear for no good reason, and then they’ll call the cops and it’ll all be way more trouble than it was worth.
– Go away.
Even if the bear is far away, you should probably make sure it’s even farther away. Why? Because a polar bear is like a bomb, in some ways, and like they say in bomb school (?); if you can see the bomb, the bomb can see you. That goes double for polar bears, since they have four legs, long claws and can go around corners. Which bombs are notorious for failing at. Also, the bear can probably see about a thousand times better than you, and it’s had millions of years to adapt to the environment the two of you are in, so just… you know… back off.
Also, check that you brought a gun. If not, go home.
OH SHIT! The polar bear is RIGHT HERE! Now what?
– Did you bring a gun? Screw it. Too late.
Never mind the gun at this point – if the bear is right there in your face, you’ve got to find some other way of squirming your way out of this predicament. Also, don’t squirm – they love that crap, since all the muscle activity will make you all the more tender and juicy when they sink their giant teeth into you.
All is not lost, however. There are many stories about this, and there seems to be methods that will work.
– Be the bear. BE the POLAR BEAR!
That’s right. Push your voice down to a growl, make yourself as big as you possibly can by waving your arms, and scream all the profanities you know right in the bears face while you try not to show fear. Can’t do that? Well… you’re dinner then. Or an appetizer, rather, unless you’re packing a few hundred pounds of blubber. Rumor has it, this guy actually did it and live to tell the tale. Which probably gets him tail to this day.
– Be an environmentalist, recycle and be friends with nature, because if you are, nature will be friends with you.
Just kidding. That won’t save you from a polar bear at all. Although, students at the university for arctic studies on Spitsbergen seems to think so, to the point where they don’t bring guns, and are thus known to the local permanent residents only as “Bearchu”, or “Bamsemums” in Norwegian, which is this; soft chocolate covered marshmallow bears. Mmmm…. good.
Bonus Terrible Things:
– You can’t outrun it.
A polar bear is white death at 25 mph. That’s 40 km/h. A lot of animals can outrun it, but you can’t, friendo.
– It’s going to find a way in.
Polar bears are intensely curious, they’re smarter than a lot of humans, and they have no natural enemies, which means they’ll take the time to really consider what to do next. If they can’t get in a door, they’ve been known to pluck boards off the wall, removing insulation and walking in that way. Basically, they just make a door for themselves.
– Lock your cupboards.
If you have a cabin in the arctics, you’d better bold your pantry shut before you leave. Or go to bed. Whatever. Stories go around about polar bears screwing the lids off jars to get to the contents, since breaking the jar would mean getting glass in the chow. It’s only a matter of time before these monsters pick the guns off of their victims and start using them against us.
– Brought a gun, did you? Is it big enough?
Look, just because you brought a gun, that doesn’t mean you won’t be torn into pieces and swallowed. Just ask the tour guide who brought a .22 to a bear fight, shot the bear, pissed the bear off, because “man, that stings when the tiny bullets get stuck just below my skin” and got himself eaten. On the upside, he held the bear up with his juicy flesh long enough for his group of tourists to get away. So… that’s something, right? Riiight…
So the moral is… bring a gun and run away. And remember that the bear can see you before you see it, so you’d better start right away. Run, you fools! Run!
(In all seriousness, polar bears don’t like you. They’ll try to avoid you, and the sound of an engine is especially effective, so bring a snowmobile. Respect the polar bear – you won’t get out on top if it comes to a show-down.)
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Very funny and educative post!