Q: How many people in the US die from bear attacks a year?

A: Not enough. Not nearly enough. Last year there were 4. The year before, 3. That's it. More people die trying to catch foul balls at baseball games than are killed by bears each year.*

And that's the problem. With so few deaths each year, people fail to take bear attacks seriously. Bears are celebrated in this culture. Worshipped. You can't walk three blocks without seeing a T-Shirt with a cartoon bear, or a sports team named after a bear, or comic book featuring a crime solving bear in a suit who spends his weekends doing pro-bono work in family court.

Bears should not be worshipped or celebrated or even caricatured. They should be shot. Or stabbed. Or hit with a car. Whatever it takes.

So that you know I am not crazy, let me share a personal story. I used to have a son. I no longer have a son. He was killed by a bear. Bear attacks account for 100% of the deaths in my family.**

And yet no one seems to understand the terror of bear attack. They weren't there. They didn't see my little boy dripping honey, stuck in that wood cage, suspended in the forest, his eyes full of fear as he heard the bear approach. They didn't the bear ripping him apart with its teeth and claws, cracking his skull like some kind of giant, honey-glazed Cadbury egg. They couldn't hear his screams, his cries begging me for help, begging me to drop the camera and save him. No one saw it. And they still refuse to watch, despite all the time and money I have spent editing and scoring the video. I haven't even sold a single DVD.

What will it take for this nation to learn?


*Statistic possibly false.
** Not counting deaths by erotic asphyxiation.