David Attenborough TV - A E Housman - P G Wodehouse - John Muir - A A Milne - The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes - Werner Herzog & Grizzly Man 2005 - Natural World TV - Mountain: Life at the Extremes TV - Cities: Nature’s New Wild TV - True Crime Recaps 2023 -
The Himalayan bear is capable of living very high indeed. David Attenborough, The Living Planet I: A Portrait of the Earth: The Building of the Earth, BBC 1984
One spectacular sleeper who dozes for months on end: just look at this – a black bear. David Attenborough, The Living Planet: The Northern Forests III
Thousands of bear families are emerging from their winter sleep. David Attenborough, Nature’s Great Events II: The Great Salmon Run, BBC 2009
During hibernation a bear burns up almost a million calories. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VI: Opportunists, BBC 2002
The Sun Bear of Indonesia: it also is a fruit-eater and it spends more of its time in the trees than any other bear. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VIII: Life in the Trees
52,561. A brown bear. Here they grow larger than anywhere in the world. Other bears have also gathered at the edge of the surf. They’ve come here to fatten up for the winter. They’re waiting for an event that happens just once a year: the salmon run. David Attenborough, Life e7: Hunters and Hunted, BBC 2009
A grizzly bear: it seems to be an odd creature to find on these high rocky slopes ... They’re searching for a rather unusual food: moths. David Attenborough, Planet Earth e2: Mountains, BBC 2006
One inhabitant endures the bitter winters out in the open – most other bears would be sleeping underground by now but the Giant Panda can’t fatten up enough to hibernate. ibid.
The red panda – rarely seen in the wild. ibid.
The presence of bears affects the behaviour of almost all the animals here big and small. David Attenborough, The Blue Planet IV: Frozen Seas, BBC 2001
Two animals that owe their existence to human interference: killer bees that were created accidentally when a well-meaning breeding experiment went wrong and Pizzly bears – the result of polar bears and brown bears interbreeding. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s4e1: Animal Frankensteins, BBC 2017
The Polar bear is a relatively new species of bear. ibid.
The Andean bear: only a few thousand remain. They eat mostly leaves and fruit. David Attenborough, Seven World, One Planet III: South America, BBC 2019
Europe. Home to more than 700,000,000 people. This is a continent that has been transformed by humanity. It is a crowded world. But not all of it. There are still precious areas of wilderness, and living within them, some very surprising animals. Forests once covered 80% of Europe. Now only half of it remains. A brown bear: one of only 1,500 that are left in Finland’s forest. David Attenborough, Seven World, One Planet V: Europe, BBC 2019
The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
He has been eaten by the bear. A E Housman, Infant Innocence 1938
Bertie: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves?
Jeeves: No, sir.
Bertie: Then why is your tummy rumbling?
Jeeves: Pardon me, sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us.
Bertie: Animal? What animal?
Jeeves: A bear, sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner. P G Wodehouse
Magnificent bears of the Sierra are worthy of their magnificent homes. They are not companions of men, but children of God, and His charity is broad enough for bears. They are the objects of His tender keeping. John Muir
Bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear’s days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours, and was poured from the same First Fountain. And whether he at last goes to our stingy heaven or no, he has terrestrial immortality. His life not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending. John Muir
A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise. A A Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder. Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man, 2005
And what haunts me is that in all the faces of the bears that Treadwell ever filmed I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell the bear was a friend, a saviour. ibid.
What remains is his footage. And while we watch the animals in their joys of being, in their grace and ferociousness, a thought becomes more and more clear. That is not so much a look at wild nature as it is an insight into ourselves, our nature. And that, for me, beyond his mission, gives meaning to his life and his death. ibid.
In the mist of the Andean cloud forest in South America there’s a shy, mysterious beast. It’s one of the largest animals in these forests, yet it’s so elusive until recently very little was known about it. It’s a spectacled bear. Natural Word s26e14: Spectacled Bears: Shadows of the Forest, BBC 2008
It’s forest home is disappearing fast. ibid.
The spectacled bear is the most threatened of all the bears. ibid.
The bears making beds in the trees. ibid.
Spectacled bears have probably always scavenged on carcasses. ibid.
In these dark ancient forests lives a creature of legend … A rare north American black bear known as a ghost bear. This white bear is a mother with two black cubs. Natural World s34e9: Ghost Bear Family
A ghost bear mother is as likely to give birth to black cubs and white ones. ibid.
From the mighty grizzly bear to the real life Paddington – the spectacled bear and the majestic polar bear, king of the frozen north, this remarkable animal family has long captured our imagination. But as some of the biggest animals on Earth, they need more than just the near necessities to get by. Natural World: Meet the Bears, BBC 2019
Across the world there are just eight species yet they range over a wide variety of habitats. ibid.
The brown bear, sometimes known as the Grizzly, and they’re gathering from one of the most extraordinary events in nature – the salmon run. ibid.
Most bear cubs stay with their mothers from two to three years. ibid.
Fossil evidence suggests that pandas have been eating bamboo for the last four million years. ibid.
Adult bears live mostly solitary lives. ibid.
The Andes most elusive animal: spectacled bear. He can go five months without a sip of water. Mountain: Life at the Extreme III: Andes, BBC 2017
A group of very hungry animals enter Aspen in search of leftovers: black bears. Cities: Nature’s New Wild II: Commuters, BBC 2018
A crashed plane, a drug smuggler and a black bear who unwittingly consumed over 70 pounds of cocaine. True Crime Recaps: The Real-Life Events That Inspired This Hit Film, Youtube 9.34, 2023
One of the most bizarre incidents in American history … Pablo Esco Bear. ibid.
In September 1985 a small plane crashed into the mountains in North Carolina. ibid.
A 175-pound black bear dead of a drug overdose. ibid.