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Description

This is Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino National Forest, premier tourism spot for So Cal and ski resort. Unlike the previous week’s entry, the namer of this town probably was more…visual…rather than conceptual. Big Bear is the mix of old Hollywood connections, gold ghost towns, and of course Bigfoot encounters
The big bear of course is a grizzly, and they’ve been gone from the area since 1908. In fact, they’ve been gone from California since 1924. Ursus Horribilus, as the California subspecies were formally classified, were not welcome neighbors to anybody. In fact, as recently as 2014, California fish and game rejected a proposal to reintroduce them too California. Just what we’d need, eh? One ton grizzly bears roaming around hungry. Any time a taxonomy includes the word ‘horrible’ I’d think twice about letting them run free. I would really be interested to know just how many grizzlies live in California in captivity, either in zoos (San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco maintain multiple grizzlies - mostly rescue nuisance bears) or in the Hollywood stunt animal trainer compounds that are around if you go looking (impossible to get those numbers). There’s probably about 1000 bears in the lower 48 (Yellowstone being a great place to get eaten by a grizzly). Nobody really has a clue how many grizzlies are in Alaska because presumably because all the researchers they send in to count them get eaten. Alaska Fish and game says 30,000, and encourages their readers to develop a taste for bear sausage & bear carnitas. Last year they permitted 2500 bear hunts and only about 250 bears were killed and those statistics blurred the black/grizzly/kodiak line…which I gather gets kinda blurry up north (including blonde bears who are grizzly/polar crosses). They did not provide statistics on how many people were killed. Anyways. Bears have a funny looking skeleton that gives them this rollicking run that’s incredibly fast. Don’t try to outrun a bear. Nice ‘truck vs bear ’ incident in this compilation
Bears are second only to giant alien octopi for terror factor.

Description

This is Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino National Forest, premier tourism spot for So Cal and ski resort. Unlike the previous week’s entry, the namer of this town probably was more…visual…rather than conceptual. Big Bear is the mix of old Hollywood connections, gold ghost towns, and of course Bigfoot encounters
The big bear of course is a grizzly, and they’ve been gone from the area since 1908. In fact, they’ve been gone from California since 1924. Ursus Horribilus, as the California subspecies were formally classified, were not welcome neighbors to anybody. In fact, as recently as 2014, California fish and game rejected a proposal to reintroduce them too California. Just what we’d need, eh? One ton grizzly bears roaming around hungry. Any time a taxonomy includes the word ‘horrible’ I’d think twice about letting them run free. I would really be interested to know just how many grizzlies live in California in captivity, either in zoos (San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco maintain multiple grizzlies - mostly rescue nuisance bears) or in the Hollywood stunt animal trainer compounds that are around if you go looking (impossible to get those numbers). There’s probably about 1000 bears in the lower 48 (Yellowstone being a great place to get eaten by a grizzly). Nobody really has a clue how many grizzlies are in Alaska because presumably because all the researchers they send in to count them get eaten. Alaska Fish and game says 30,000, and encourages their readers to develop a taste for bear sausage & bear carnitas. Last year they permitted 2500 bear hunts and only about 250 bears were killed and those statistics blurred the black/grizzly/kodiak line…which I gather gets kinda blurry up north (including blonde bears who are grizzly/polar crosses). They did not provide statistics on how many people were killed. Anyways. Bears have a funny looking skeleton that gives them this rollicking run that’s incredibly fast. Don’t try to outrun a bear. Nice ‘truck vs bear ’ incident in this compilation
Bears are second only to giant alien octopi for terror factor.