Solar - Terrestrial Data

Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Urban Bear

This picture I nicked from the website of our local newsletter at www.vasabladet.fi and you can see a bear carreering down the middle of the road heading towards downtown Vasa.
This incident happened yesterday morning when I was biking in to work. Just outside the site where my office is located I saw a lot of police cars running up and down the road, lights flashing, and I thought they were looking for some bank robbers or jailbirds on the run.
When I entered the office I was asked if I had seen any bear coming towards me because they had heard on the radio that a bear was heading down the same bikers lane I use and heading towards the city center!
It seems that te bear had already went past the junction where I enter the very same lane and some 45 mins. later we heard a report that the bear was shot and killed and the "bear-crisis" was over.
The bear had been spotted early in the morning at the outskirts of the city where it had destroyed some beehives and eaten some twenty pounds of honey and thus refreshed it seemingly headed for the market square downtown to get some more :)
When it got dangerously close to a kindergarten and a hospital the police was called in to turn it around but the stubborn guy had set his mind for the city center and that was a big no-no.
Sorry 'bout that mr. Bear!

6 comments:

alegni said...

anything could have happened! i'm glad they sent him to bear heaven!

Dale said...

My first thoughts are, it's too bad the bear had to be shot and killed, rather than sedated and removed to a safer location. But, the safety of the local human population is foremost.

He sure was hoofin' it down the road, though, by the looks of the photo! Bears really can run fast.

We live in bear country and it's a regular occurence, especially during spring and autumn, to see bears in our neighbourhood. In the autumn they come down into our valley to prey on the ripe fruit trees in our yards in order to stock up for their long winter hibernation. In the spring, they are just plain hungry...Then they move back up into the high country during the summer to bear (no pun intended) their young.

My kids will often come home from school with "bear alert" notices.
It's the cougars that track through here that are a bit more worrysome. They are more intent on actually eating a human.

That's quite the story, Hans!

grace said...

can't blame the big guy, he was hungry :)

I have encountered bears in Montana, and they seem more scared of us then us of them. The Moose...now what out for them

Vallypee said...

I have to feel sad that the bear was shot, Hans. I suppose it was necessary but it would have made me happier if they had sedated him instead and sent him back to his home turf.

The picture is amazing though. He was making a beeline for the city then was he? ;-)

Hans said...

Hi all, I'm sorry I haven't been around blogspot for a while, I am very occupied with my regular work and own projects nowadays... :)

Well, we are familliar with moose getting lost and into the city but seeing a bear around here is very rare. Last time it happened was some ten years (or maybe more) ago but that bear they could divert from entering the city center.
There has been discussions going on on local webforums regarding the shooting of this bear but one thing that appeared in the very beginning was that neither the police department nor the rescue forces around here are in the posession of any sedation gun! Duh!

grace said...

Hello Hans,
You sound very busy. Work is good, the ways things are so expensive these days.

take care, xo

 
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