Oh my!
If you believe Stephen Colbert (and really, who doesn’t?) bears are deadly.
“Bears are soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines,├óΓé¼┬¥ the comedian has written. ├óΓé¼┼ôThey are Satan├óΓé¼Γäós minions and the TRUE symbol of evil.├óΓé¼┬¥
He might be surprised, then, by a new study that found that black bears — the most common bears in North America — have killed only 63 people in the United States and Canada over the last 109 years.
The study also found, contrary to popular perception, that the black bears most likely to kill are not mothers protecting cubs. Most attacks, 88 percent, involved a bear on the prowl, likely hunting for food. And most of those predators, 92 percent, were male.
“Mother bears, whenever they feel threatened or a person is too close, they act very aggressively. They make noise, they swat the ground with their paws and they run at people. They want to make you think that they’ll eat you alive, but they almost always stop.”
The study’s lead author explained.
[Image via WENN.]