Wildlife-Reporter: Wow, I see you have put on same weight since we last met! What happened?
W-R: Never mind, before I get hungry…we invited you for an exclusive interview, as you are our nomination for 2018 most famous wildlife icon! And we promise not to keep you long, as we know you must be on your way to winter residence for the long hibernation sleeps! How have you been?
Mr. B: We, bears, are creatures of habit, shy and peaceful, so we try not to capture much attention, while getting on with our routine! That is why we acquired some nocturnal habits, to avoid company of men. And as always, we are mostly busy with… surviving! That involves storing enough fat for winter, raising our cubs and avoiding humans!
W-R: And how well do you manage to… survive?
Mr. B: We are pretty good at that, our kind evolved to be one of the most competitive large species in nature! We out-strong or out-smart our natural enemies, we have keen senses, we eat pretty much everything and we are very creative in finding the food, we can endure harshest weather conditions and our organism is adapted to recycling the nitrogen from our waste during the winter sleep and turning it into muscle building proteins thus coming stronger in spring and ready to resume activity immediately! We have no real natural predators, except for our own kind, large males which may be a threat to our cubs! But we are doing rather poor when coming to avoiding impact from human activity, our real protection here is the weather, while before modern human society we inhabited most of the planet (from African continent to North Pole, from Tibet to Mexico and up all the way to Alaska), now we retrieved to colder Northern regions or very remote mountain locations!
W-R: Which are the main human related threats, if I may ask?
Mr. B: Direct threats like trophy hunting, but also indirect ones through destruction of our main habitats, global warming (mainly for the Polar cousin) or poaching for our bladder, an organ of zero nutritional value to humans, but highly appreciated in Chinese culture, for its presumed magical powers! To these bile eaters I say one thing: If you want to be strong as a bear, don’t eat parts of the bear, but live like a bear, as only the strongest survive in our environment!
W-R: What about the human protection you get in the national parks?
Mr. B: We do appreciate the national parks, and we thank all our fans to come and see us, and teach their children and friends about us and about the places where we live! If it wouldn’t be for such places, we would have no presence in many places which we have always inhabited. Thanks to our fans and the boost that the local tourism gets, we are allowed to exist under protection and do what we know best, to survive, as wild bears! But these national parks cannot be our only home, nature doesn’t work like this, we need space, we sometimes need to migrate to other regions to avoid isolation and in-breeding, we need to live by nature’s law where strongest males father the new generations rather then decorating the wall of a rich hunter! We are the symbol itself of all there is, wild and free!
W-R: What should people learn, why it is so important for bears to continue being part of this new world, which is changing too fast under our own eyes?
Mr. B: Humans need to understand that bears, as well as other large carnivores, represent the top-chain of healthy ecosystems, that are providing free services worth trillions to human kind, but which are sensitive and whose resources are not able to regenerate faster than current exploitation levels! There cannot be a healthy ecosystem without carnivores, and there cannot be human kind in long run without a sustainable ecosystem! We are all part of this world, as we know it, remove one piece, and this world will turn into something else, totally different, with many unpredictable consequences!
Autumn arrived in the Northern hemisphere, and this is best time to consider reconnecting with the nature, while weather is still warm and you get a free spectacle of colors from planet’s best designer, the nature itself! We have chosen a national park in the mountains, closest to our location, and this was Coma Pedrosa National Park in the Pirinei, in the Principality of Andorra, between France and Spain. After 22 km of hiking in one day and a good night sleep, I felt alive again (far from office virtual reality) and with recharged battery and another perspective over life!
All along, above the 2900 m peaks around us, the symbol of the wild and free, the Griffon vultures, were our company. Masters of the sky, using the warm air to float with minimum energy, these giants are luckily still a common sight in the mountains, helping the ecosystems by cleaning it, as feeding with wild carrion as well as dead sheep left behind by shepherds. They are known for their excellent sight and sense of small, detecting their food from kilometers away! Magnificent wild birds!
Don’t hesitate, visit your closest national park, the seasonal wild fruits, mushrooms and autumn colors are a yearly spectacle not to be missed! Fun and relax guaranteed!