If asked to name a favourite childhood toy, the chances are that most people would come up with the teddy bear.
Generations of children have found comfort with a fuzzy companion to make the night hours just that little less scary, or by listening wide-eyed to a tale where bears are warm, furry and have adventures of their own.
The world famous Steiff company have been making teddy bears since 1902, while a search on Amazon for ‘bear’ in children’s books brings up a little less than 35,000 entries.
‘My Friend Bear’, ‘Can’t You Sleep Little Bear’, ‘Bear Snores On’ are just some of the titles, along with ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.
The synopsis reads: “Follow the family’s excitement as they wade through the grass, splash through the river and squelch through the mud in search of the bear. What a surprise awaits in the cave on the other side of the dark forest.”
The best-selling, award-winning book has a somewhat ironic title considering that roughly 500,000 black bear hunting licenses are issued each year in the US with almost 82,000 registered hunters in Canada.
Meanwhile, the larger grizzly bear is listed as ‘threatened’ in the US and ‘endangered’ in parts of Canada.
According to experts at BestHuntingAdvice, the reasons behind hunting are frequently given as a way of keeping the bear population down, or to remove a predatory bear, but the truth is simple. Many North Americans hunt bears for sheer enjoyment, and the numerous websites and magazines devoted to weaponry and the best hunting spots cater for a voracious appetite.
While it’s true to say that a bear can carry a considerable threat to a hunter, bears rarely launch an unprovoked attack on people. Just 31 people have been killed in North America by bears since 2000, and 23 in the 1990s.
Critics would also argue just how much ‘sport’ can be obtained from shooting an unaware animal, going about its daily business, from a safe distance through a telescopic lens.
No figures seem to be available for the number of bears killed in North America during 2010, but as a snapshot, a six-day bear hunt in New Jersey last month resulted in 589 kills, 17.3% of the estimated bear population.
But as well as being ingrained in some sections of the American psyche, hunting big game is big business.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation from 2006 showed that 12.5 million people hunted within the United States on 220 million days, spending $22.9 billion. An estimated 10.7 million hunters pursued big game, such as bears, deer and elk, on 164 million days.
Eastern Europe has also found that bears offer the opportunity to make big money.
Rich foreigners are willing to pay $9000 for the privilege of shooting bears in Romania and Russia, drastically reducing the number of animals.
Some estimates put the brown bear population in Romania as a little more than 4000, a 50% reduction since the fall of Communism. Slovakia may have as little as 400 bears left.
And outside of hunting, bear-baiting is still rife in Pakistan, while in Japan, bears are kept in concrete ‘parks’ and forced to beg for food in the name of public entertainment. Meanwhile, bear bile and bear body parts are much sought after in traditional Chinese medicine, with the bears farmed under deplorable conditions in South Korea and China itself.
Bears were hunted to extinction in the UK around 1000AD. One thousand years later, much of the adult world seems hell-bent on continuing to persecute a much-loved childhood friend.
