pulse Report This Comment
Date: October 03, 2025 08:12AM

We only have drop bears.

But they're the most vicious of all.

Anon - not logged in Report This Comment
Date: October 03, 2025 09:37AM

The photo is disingenuous. It doesn't give the age of the bears (black bears grow much larger than Kodiaks).

Nor their temperaments. Kodiaks will pick you up by the seat of your pants, carry you away from the deer you shot and were skinning, drop you, go back and eat the deer. They have been known to walk up and sit near fishermen. They may steal your fish. There's one time of year (I think mating) when males become dangerous.

Adult Black bears are always dangerous, unless riddled with bullets. .223 bullets don't count unless there's ten of them.

I've never been to Canada or Russia, but the things you learn from them...

As for Drop Bears, once the rest of the world is used to it, we'll introduce another spider, but I think some type of worm comes first?

quasi Report This Comment
Date: October 04, 2025 12:23AM

My caption was meant to be sarcastic, and I suppose we're supposed to assume those claws are all from adults, however they do correspond to the size of each species and I wouldn't want to tangle with any of them.

Where I live, especially south of here, black bears entering areas populated by people are fairly common. Attacks are few and there has only been one fatal attack in the last 20 or so years when, just a few months ago, one of them smelled food in a travel trailer and the elderly owner was inside. That was in a wilderness area adjacent to Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. I've camped in my small trailer for a few nights in the preserve where the rules recommend carrying bear spray which I did but had no encounters. The fellow who was killed had been living in the trailer on private property for some time and the bear had likely become accustomed to finding food in trash outside of it. It was very unfortunate and in the aftermath three bears were killed in the area before one was identified as the culprit.

There's a large wildlife management area not far from my semi-rural property, something like 80,000 acres, with a few black bears in residence. Not long ago one of them wandered the few miles into town, crossing major highways, right through downtown, and into a heavily populated area of single family homes where it was found in a tree, anesthetized, and relocated I believe to Big Cypress Preserve. Generally, besides getting into people's trash and making a mess, Florida black bears aren't much trouble.