[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[pct-l] Bear Proof Suit



	It sounds like 'The Man Show' stuff, but I saw this 
grizzly-suit guy on a TV documentary.  He's serious, it's like his 
whole life purpose.  He's been at it for years.  He tests the various 
versions (that's him in the 'Ursus Mark 6' in the photo) by having 
his buddy drive into him with his pickup truck, like, at speed, or 
bash him in the head with a bat.  He set up a pendulum arrangement on 
a tree, and he had his buddy hoist up heavy stuff like logs and 
cinder blocks that he would release from a height, and it would swing 
down and slam into his head at 55mph.  In the showw he went to the 
dump and smeared honey all over it, then layed down on the garbage 
pile.  When a black bear came up and got close, he jumped to grab it, 
but it scared the crap out of the bear.  It ran away.
	They don't answer the WHY though (besides the fact that it 
makes for great TV).....apparently there is great curiosity about how 
it is that grizzlies hibernate, what it is that regulates their 
organs, heartrate, metabolism, body temperature and all.... since the 
info might be of use for anesthesia......I don't know, but he wants 
to crawl in a grizzly den and be the first to take a blood sample 
from a hibernating bear. I think he was supposed to be on a winch 
that his buddies would use to retrieve him.  Seems like if that was 
something we really needed, though, it could have been done far 
easier on a captive hibernating bear long ago.

Kevin "I Want My Cable TV" Corcoran

>In case you all haven't seen this yet:
>
>http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991668
>http://www.nfb.ca/grizzly/suit.html