Polar Bear Uses Rock To Smash Aquarium Window!

Originally posted by RicoMarston

Originally posted by Azadok2day

Originally posted by crazydaisy
Very smart bear - he wants to
go back home. Poor guy!

He was playing with the rock and did by accident , although I am sure some scientist will say they are evolving to use tools and have developed problem solving skills . Given enough time they will be the next dominant species on earth evolving into a man bear . The problem will then be racism because the black bear is left behind

phew! good thing we've got an expert zoological opinion from somebody who was on the scene! tell me, have you been studying the bear for long? is this a game that he plays on a regular basis? what drove the bear to engage in a simple, unintelligent game of "pick up the rock on the enclosure's floor and try to swim to the surface with it only to drop it and accidentally send it crashing into the glass with yummy humans on the other side?" is this a common, totally meaningless and pointless game that polar bears play on a regular basis? or has this bear just taken great strides forward in the evolution of polar bear games?

I had a dog that like to flip rocks around and he hit me with them on occasion so with your train of thought my dog was purposely assaulting me

reply to post by Azadok2day




Yeah, you weren't giving him enough walks or enough bones. No wonder your dog assaulted you.

Originally posted by Azadok2day

Originally posted by RicoMarston

Originally posted by Azadok2day

Originally posted by crazydaisy
Very smart bear - he wants to
go back home. Poor guy!

He was playing with the rock and did by accident , although I am sure some scientist will say they are evolving to use tools and have developed problem solving skills . Given enough time they will be the next dominant species on earth evolving into a man bear . The problem will then be racism because the black bear is left behind

phew! good thing we've got an expert zoological opinion from somebody who was on the scene! tell me, have you been studying the bear for long? is this a game that he plays on a regular basis? what drove the bear to engage in a simple, unintelligent game of "pick up the rock on the enclosure's floor and try to swim to the surface with it only to drop it and accidentally send it crashing into the glass with yummy humans on the other side?" is this a common, totally meaningless and pointless game that polar bears play on a regular basis? or has this bear just taken great strides forward in the evolution of polar bear games?

I had a dog that like to flip rocks around and he hit me with them on occasion so with your train of thought my dog was purposely assaulting me

two things; 1) i wasn't there, so i don't know what the polar bear was doing.
2) i'm sure if your dog could talk, he'd have a reasonable explanation.

i can't remember the last time i did something for absolutely no reason.
I also hate when people smugly make matter of fact statements as if they know the real Truth to end all truths. "He was playing with the rock and did by accident" sounds pretty conclusive to me. it isn't framed as a hypothesis, but a conclusion. the poster KNOWS that that's what happened. so i'd like further comment as s/he's obviously intimately aware of the situation.

now on to your dog; playing in the animal world is actually practicing. when kittens "play" with a ball of string, they're actually practicing for when they might have to kill a small animal for food. they're natural instinct is to bat the ball around, claw at it, bite it and whip their heads around. now, what instinctual itch could flipping rocks over with his snout in the yard be scratching? the urge to dig? to bury? to hide food for later when it may get scarce? or just "for fun?" how many things do you do "for fun" that you can't extrapolate some greater meaning or lesson out of?

I'm not saying the bear is a genius and has hatched an escape plan. I'm saying that 1) we weren't there so definitive statements are ignorant and 2) most animals I've been around don't just play for no reason at all. A dog tries to break the neck of his little chew toy. A polar bear wants to see what happens when a rock hits that crazy invisible barrier he's been swimming into. two humans wrestle for fun in order to gain experience-based wisdom for a time when they may not be wrestling just for fun.