Annals of Investigation–Smokey’s A Couch Potato: Bears may resent human intrusion into their habitat, but living among humans makes for a pretty cushy ursine existence. A recent study (second item) conducted by the Journal of Zoology compared black bears that live in wilderness areas to black bears that live near urban areas. The findings: urban bears are getting fat and lazy because it’s so easy for them to find food. Sure, every once in a while an urban bear makes the mistake of eating a dog or mauling someone mowing the lawn, and unholy hell ensues, with lots of shooting. But on the whole living around homo sapiens means a practically unlimited smorgasbord of human garbage. The abundance of vittles means the bears do less work to find more calories, so they are about 30 percent fatter than their hungrier wilderness bear-brothers and get to laze around an extra 5 hours or so a day. What will PETA have to say about this? Will there be bear class action suits against McDonalds?



“You mean I gotta work for my dinner while those bastards in town eat Big Macs and sit around watching cable?!”