A man who tried to fight a grizzly bear in Banff National Park was recently fined $4,000. It’s not the Babylon Bee and there’s nothing more to the story than the headline. You can read the whole thing for further details (and photos!) but there’s no surprise. I’m sure you already guessed there was alcohol involved. The article will confirm it.
Of course, the judge and park people get all “hand wringy” about how this traumatized the bear and various other crap. They barely stop short of rambling about Gaia and global warming… but maybe that part got cut by the newspaper editor.
For example, there’s a quote about how this dipshit will “create an aggressive animal that obviously has the ability to do a lot of harm to humans and the public in general”. Nope! A grizzly bear already has the ability to do a lot of harm. It was born a fuckin’ grizzly and it’ll die one. It has the ability to do harm every step of the way. That’s why you don’t fight ’em.
What the drunk numbnuts did accomplish is making a bear that’s deeply confused. The bear is probably thinking “WTF was that all about?” I’m sure all its bear friends are making fun of it; “you ran away from a human? Why?”
The judge also added that the fine “is a strong message to other individuals who, for whatever reason, would think to engage in this kind of behaviour”. Bwa ha ha… yeah we all need a message to tell us not to mess with things that can rip us in half. Just the other day I was thinking of stuffing thirty badgers down my jock strap but then I though “what message would a judge give over this action” and I thought better of it. After this maybe society will send messages to people who stick their head’s in wood chippers, piss on arc welders, and bungee jump using chain.
As you can tell, I think the judge’s explanation is unnecessary. Initiating shirtless inebriated hand to hand combat with grizzlies is a self correcting problem. Dudes this dumb just don’t last long.
Regardless, I like to think there’s a living room somewhere with a framed copy of the fine. If you had that document wouldn’t you hang it up? “$4000 penalty for fighting grizzly bears“. They might want to hurry because this dude’s not going to last long.
It would become a family heirloom. “Oh yeah, that framed document is from Uncle Ed back in 2019. He died shortly after that in a bizarre event involving a cement mixer, three orangutans, a fifth of whiskey, and eleven car batteries. All they found was his femur. It was in a tree. God rest his soul.”