I was at the Department of Natural Resources Outdoor Adventure Center a few weeks ago.

(The Center is completely indoors)

In the center there are many educational displays about the different flora and fauna of Michigan, including deer, elk, snakes, squirrels, fish, etc.

One display in particular caught my attention:

Did you know that bears will lose about 40% of total body weight during their yearly 4-5 month hibernation? Therefore it’s important to prepare by consuming enough to make it through the winter. They do this by consuming about 20,000 calories a day, starting in late summer. Amazingly, the majority of these calories come from blueberries and acorns!

The photos below give you a rough idea of how many acorns and blueberries they are eating PER DAY just to store up for hibernation.

Well if I’m supposed to be impressed with nature’s beautiful miracle of bears let me tell you I’m not. I mean, FOUR TO FIVE MONTHS EVERY YEAR just to hibernate!?!? Holy crap, must be nice!!!

The rest of us are out here going to work, bustin’ our asses, trying to scrape by and you’re sleeping a third of the year. I mean, really, am I only the one who’s seeing this?

If you’re reading this blog right now and you’re a bear, don’t be messaging me later whining about “nature’s rhythms” or “hibernating is just the way we are” - that’s baloney! Look around, there are PLENTY of other animals who work all year, making themselves useful and earning a good living. Birds build a new house every season (it’s cheaper than renting in this economy), whales write songs, and raccoons regularly fill in on the night shift for trash removal. No one is asking you to migrate thousands of miles, but would it kill ya to get a job?

Also, don’t go crying about “I lose 40% of my body weight every spring.” That’s just what happens when you take half a year off, what do you expect? It’s bad enough you’re not around November to April, but as if that weren’t enough, by late summer the only thing you feel like doing is filling up on blueberries. Really, if you think about it, you only work May, June, and early July. And I gotta ask - what exactly do you do around here? I mean, I’ve seen a few well-trained bears in the circus, they are the exception rather than the rule, but other than that you bears don’t seem to do much at all.

I’m starting to think Mother Nature is codependent and it’s time for her to cut off her bear children. She needs to redraw some healthy boundaries, because these bears have been living in the forest equivalent of their parent’s basement for many, many years.

There’s lots out there for an enterprising young bear to do, including tons of current openings in the food service industry. Sure, it’s not the most glamorous job, but with a little hard work and elbow grease, waiting tables could turn you into a small business owner. Just look at the classic rags-to-riches story told in the short novel Barney Bear’s Pizza Shop.

Who knows? Maybe I’m crazy, but I remember a time when being a Bear used to mean something. I grew up in the days of Smokey The Bear, when bears tended to focus on responsibility and accountability. Smokey never waited for someone ELSE to come along and put out a forest fire, I can tell you that much! And if he were still around today I think he’d be disgusted and disappointed by the current state of Bears. It certainly seems like all they want to do is eat blueberries, and eat acorns, and just hibernate and follow nature’s rhythms. Ridiculous!

Bears are Lazy