Could that rope hold that bear? Nah.

I'd rather have a bear feeder than a bird feeder any day!

what is the grey stuff in pictures 2 and 4? it seems to be where the rope ends. looks fake

You can clearly see the rope continuing on the right side of picture 2. I'm not sure what the gray is, but they might be reflections on a window if these pictures were taken from indoors.

The gray thing looks to be a circular piece of material, perhaps plastic or metal. It's not a reflection on the window, because it's behind the leaves. My guess would be that it's something on the line intended to block squirrels (and bears?) from climbing along the line to the feeder. That sort of thing is common enough. It's only visible in those two pictures because those two pictures are the only ones taken from that particular angle.

These pictures were taken by a friend of a friend of a coworker of my daughters in Sudbury, Ontario (I'm not making this up).

Last summer my daughter worked for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (or as we like to call them the Ministry of No Results) and someone in their Sudbury office emailed these photos with a note that a friend had taken them in their back yard.

Yes, that is a squirrel cone hiding in the leaves. They are supposed to deter the squirrels from raiding your bird feeders but they don't work worth shit. The best deterrent against squirrels is a small bear.

This was an email forward I received from a friend; no additional details available on my end (not through lack of trying!).

That must be some damn good bird feed.

Stop feeding by April 1, indeed.

> Could that rope hold that bear? Nah.

Tensile strength of a 3/16 plastic rope is something like 1300 lbs. The biggest black bears are in the 800 lb range.

Fake! Now is Alex trying to pull a prank on people too, or does he actually believe that? I *think* the former.

Bears are notorious bird feeder theives... a bear climbing around like a squirrel... stop feeding the birds by April Fool's Day. Suuuurrre.

From my rock climbing days...

In a scenario where a climber falls and is caught by a rope, the impact on the rope is a function not only of the rope's composition and the weight applied, but also of the ratio of the rope played out vs. the distance of the fall.

For instance, if the lead climber has 100 feet of rope played out, and is standing 5' above an anchor and falls, he falls a total of 10 feet before he's caught. Ratio of rope length vs. distance of fall is 10/100 or 1:10.

The worst-case scenario occurs when the lead climber starts from a belay station partway up the rock face, and falls before anchoring the rope. Let's say he climbs 10' and falls; the total distance of the fall is 20'. The ratio is 20'/10' or 2:1

The idea is: in the 2:1 scenario the impact of the fall was spread out over a much shorter length of rope so it's hard on the rope. In the 1:10 scenario the fall is spread out over so much rope that it's not impacted much.

In this bear scenario I think it matters what the rope is anchored to. Sort of like a fishing pole: the fact that it bends allows you to land a fish that may be substantially heavier than the rating of the fishing line.

I could clean this up but I gotta go...

These are not recent photos - if that makes any difference. I first saw them more than a year ago. I doubted them at the time and I still do. One reason that I have doubts is that I've gotten two different versions. One said that it took place in the NE part of the US, the other said somewhere in Canada. Of course, I could be wrong about their authenticity, since I don't live in bear country. But nevertheless, altered photos or not, they are certainly entertaining.

You gullable morons - this is fake! Even outside of the obvious blunders of physics. There are numerous picture differences and touch up mistakes especially on the first picture with the tree where you can clearly see the bear fur where the tree should be at 3:00.

The picture will not sit right as well with your thought processes. That is your subconscious telling you- it is fake, that it does not mesh and creates conflict with your understanding of previous pictures of the same and real life. You will get the same feeling if you see a bear leaping from rock to rock over a stream using only hind feet.

To Antone:

You wrote:

...you can clearly see the bear fur where the tree should be at 3:00.

Here's the reality:

Look again. The bear has just climbed up that tree. He's got his left hind leg still sorta wrapped around the tree - for balance. That's why you see fur "where the tree should be". It's probably the bear's knee - or his hip. I'm not familiar w/bear anatomy.

Don't want to spoil so much national fun .... but .... :o)

What I find "interesting" is the branch in photo 2, 3, and 4, but no branch in photo 1.

That thin rope would have to be tied pretty tight to bear the weight of a bear that size and not bend between the trees more than it is in the images (note I say images and not photos ;o).

My feeling on the branch is that the touch-up artist got tired of trying to manipulate the image of the rope and decided to put a branch there instead but couldn't do that in the first one or you would have seen no bear precariously hanging on the tree in the first image.

I think any bear, smarter than the average bear of course, could find an easier way to get some bird seed.

And that looks more like a bird house to me anyway.

Well, I found these pics because I was doing research on bears stealing bird feeders, because when I woke up yesterday, three feeders in my yard were gone, and my chicken coop had been raided for food, but the food dish, attached by a bungee cord, must have sling-shotted back into the coop.

Now, one of these feeders was on an aluminum post, which was broken off at the base support and dragged about a hundred feet into the woods, pole, squirrel baffle, and all, and smashed against a tree. A second hanging feeder was yanked from it's rope, taken into the woods again, and likewise smashed on a tree. The third feeder was pulled down from a height of about seven feet, branch and all, but apparently bears don't like nyjer seed, because that feeder was left on the ground, still full.

My point from this is that I don't think the bear in the pictures is going to extreme measures at all. That is definitely a bird feeder, and a good -sized one, meaning a large quantity of food. The bear probably actually enjoyed the adventure.

Ok, so after some reading, the rope can hold the weight of a bear without breaking. Would it not still stretch much further to the ground? In the first photo, what is supporting the bear on the far side of the tree? There are no branches below, and the branches above seem to be tiny. In the subsequent photos we have changed angles, 180 degrees it appears, so the bear has also changed sides. That's fine, no problem with that. My problem then becomes the bears teeth and claws on the rope without it shredding. Let's say the bear was able to prevent that somehow, why is the bear five shades brighter than his surroundings? Also, why is there no visible wrinkling of his jowls around the rope in photo 2? In all photos the bear's back appears to be photoshop material where it meets the green background. Lastly, note the pole beneath the bear in photo 4. If the bear falls he will impale himself and die. That point does not refute authenticity, I just found it interesting. These photos do not seem real at all.

These pictures were taken in Sudbury, Ontario (Canada) in June, 2005 by my brother Erik. I know there is some controversy over the photos, but they are real and my bro has 20 different ones that have never been circulated on the interenet all in high resolution (10 MP). That is the real story.

Why did your brother use Adobe Photoshop? When you open the pictures in a HEX editor you can plainly see that Photoshop was used and that the picture was layered. What is the layering for if not for the bogus junk it appears to be? Lastly, in photo 2 why is the Bear's butt completely flat?

Dave,

Could we hear from your brother to confirm that?