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The Black Bear- Powerful As A Truck, Smart As A Pig

John Weeks informs us about one of the most intelligent bears, the black bear. This bear was known to pioneers as attacking their mammals and taking them as food. He talks about fear he felt while in the woods. While making his way back home on a camping trip he heard a lot of noise, and thought it was a pig. Only the end trail of a bear was left behind when he went to the location where the scuffling was heard. He describes bears as a big appetite wrapped up in a powerful body. He found that even a dead bear is hard to handle because of its weight.

This episode of Nature of Things was originally aired on December 5th, 1991.

John Weeks studied ornithology and wildlife management at Cornell University and earned a graduate degree in plant ecology from Syracuse University. He has served as Conservation Biologist for the NYS Conservation Department; Associate Professor of Biology at SUNY Oswego; Founding Director of The Rogers Environmental Education Center at Sherburne, NY; and Director of the Onondaga Nature Center and Center for Nature Education at Baltimore Woods, Marcellus, NY. He assisted in the creation of the Cayuga Nature Center and the Sterling Nature Center in Cayuga County near Fair Haven, NY.