The bear necessities of life

The adult male grizzly bear weights up to 800lb, is called Ursus horriblis, can run at 30mph and is known to attack humans. You would think that any sensible person would stay as far from these animals as possible. Apparently, Richard White from San Diego was not one of those sensible people:

"He knew about camping," White's father said. "He knew about survival techniques. He knew about all this from the time he was 10 years old."

I would have thought "survival techniques" cover "not going anywhere near adult grizzlies without a high-power rifle", but apparently not.

As Pavlov's Cat acerbically notes:

...I do wonder what bear awareness training consists of, I would of thought holding up a picture of a bear and saying "This is a fucking bear, it will fucking kill you if you get too close or you piss it off" would cover it.

It continues to astound me that people treat bears so casually - witness tourists in Yellowstone photographing a grizzly as it wanders by a few feet from them, and then what has to be my all-time favourite:

I mean, what the heck? Photographing a grizzly mother with cubs from 15 feet away? There are times one wonders whether the baboons would have made a more intelligent society than the one we have today.