Don't take your eye off the bear

Hugh the bear was my friend.

He was about twenty-one years old, six feet or so tall, black fur and eyes and possessor of about six teeth. Hugh lived in the bear observatory at the Okefenokee Swamp Park. His job was to be watched thru a big glass window by tourists.

Being observed all the time isn’t an easy job, but Hugh was good at it. He laid in the shade, ambled over to his trough, ate, drank, stood up, scratched his back against a tree, yawned, and flopped back down in the shade. Every hour or so, Hugh would stroll up close to the window so people sitting behind it could ooh and ah while taking his picture. Then he’d drink some water, relieve himself and flop on the ground in the shade.

One of my jobs as a boat guide at the park was to feed Hugh on the weekend. Actually, it wasn’t my job, but I always went with the guy whose job it was because I liked petting Hugh. Reaching over a waist high fence and rubbing a bear’s neck while tourists take your picture makes you puff up and feel macho.

Things got even better on the days when Cassie, the ticket girl who worked in the gift shop went to the observatory. She got a break in the morning to wipe off the hand and face impressions all the little kids left after pressing their face against the window to watch the HughBear show.

Cassie was a blue eyed (bottle assisted) blonde with a bright smile, small waist and ideal proportions of everything else crammed into blue jeans and a tee-shirt. Her appeal was such that three months earlier she had placed second at the Spring Break Bikini Contest at Panama City. As fate would have it, the schedule for feeding Hugh coincided with Cassie wiping down the windows.

One day, I was putting Hugh’s food in his trough and had just started rubbing his neck when Cassie reached up to clean the upper portion of the window. Given such a distraction, I suddenly stopped scratching Hugh’s neck and focused on Cassie’s superb job of glass cleaning.

Hugh was a good bear, but he did have a character flaw of demanding someone’s undivided attention. When I began taking more interest in the blonde in the window than the bear at my feet, he bit the corner of my blue jeans and gave a tug.

This was about the same time that Cassie decided to stand on her tiptoes and reach high enough to fully expose her belly button. I was feeling more pull from her bellybutton than the bear yanking on my pants until the world flipped upside down and Hugh bent over and gently placed his paw against my chest and his nose next to mine.

He had my undivided attention.

My hands were on the ground, my feet sticking up in the air, and my legs leaning against the fence while bad bear breath filled my nostrils – not the way I had envisioned spending my morning. Fortunately, my mind was clear enough to know that moving quickly could be really bad for me.

I calculated how long it would take Hugh to eat me with only six teeth and launched into the 100th Psalm when Cassie started banging on the window.
I could barely see her out of the corner of my eye as she jumped up and down, waved her arms and screamed loudly. Normally, this would make my heart beat very quickly, but that process was already well underway and oddly enough anything she did at the moment seemed irrelevant to stimulation of my teenage hormones.

Hugh noticed though. He might have been a bear, but he was a guy and I had caught him oogling Cassie’s midriff on more than one occasion.

Hugh moved his nose and redirected his bad breath toward the window long enough for Tony, the guy who had been cleaning the snake cages, to help me drop my feet to the ground, take two steps back, leap over the fence and spring thru the safety of a metal door.

After that I still liked petting ole Hugh and he liked it too, I just did it after Cassie had cleaned the observation window.

This incident comes to mind often, sometimes waking me at night, others sending a quick chill down my spine. While I joke about it today, I knew as soon as I was flipped upside down that even bears in captivity can be lethal. I got lucky.

I watched last week the news reports of an Orca whale killing its trainer and other incidents caught on tape where trainers where attacked by whales.
I don’t know if keeping animals in captivity is right or wrong, if we learn enough about the animals to justify changing their lifestyle or if they are happier in captivity than where they would otherwise be.

The issue will be debated, some needed safety regulations will be implemented, we’ll all pray for the best, and probably continue paying to see these magnificent creatures out of their natural habitat.

I don’t completely agree with Roman philosopher Apuleis who pronounced that familiarity breeds contempt. However, in regards to wild animals, familiarity definitely causes people to let their guard down and open themselves to danger. I speak from firsthand experience.

Driving cars, recreational activities, and a number of jobs are as risky as training killer whales. We need improvement in all of these areas. Thinking today about our interaction with animals, I hope that we learn more from nature’s creatures so that fewer animal lovers suffer the fate of Dawn Bracheau and the grief suffered by her family and friends.