SMSC Diary (Week 4): Fear Mongering and Why It Is Not Okay

This week felt like an undergraduate’s fieldwork dream: we had our second practicum day, built rain covers for mosquito traps, practiced setting up camera traps, installed passive acoustic monitoring devices in trees, and actively monitored bat calls using a handheld acoustic monitoring device. The best part of the week by far had to be venturing to Bear Pond on the far end of the SCBI campus to select my own camera trap location.

The name of the pond suggested the sort of creatures I might find wondering about (bears), but after 2 hours at the site the name felt like a story parents tell to their children to keep them out of the woods at night. Alas, just as I finished setting my camera trap I encountered my first black bear (Ursus americanus)! The situation unfolded something a little like this:

*Distant foot steps*

Professor: What was that?

Me: *unconcerned* That was Colin (another student).

Professor: No, Colin is over there. *points to opposite side of the pond*

Me: *Looks at Colin on opposite side of pond. Turns to direction of footsteps, only to look bear directly in the eye from 50 meters away*

Me: *stricken with fear* It’s a bear!

Professor: *excitedly* Is it really?

Me: YES! What do we do? I know they can climb trees really well, but can I outswim it?

Professor: You’re the biologist, you tell me.

- SCENE -

So, let’s talk about what is wrong with this situation. First, after the initial surprise of a bear being so close why was I unable to gain composure? I remained stricken with fear after the bear had left. It wasn’t until we returned to the other side of the pond with the group by the van we had came in that I could process the situation, and be as excited as my professor. About four hours later, after I had sufficient time to brag about my experience with a wild bear I felt sad that I hadn’t been this excited at the beginning.

This brings me to the second problem with this situation, albeit more of broad scope issue – fear mongering. For those of you who do not know what this means, fear mongering is the deliberate act of arousing fear in regards to a particular event, topic, or object. In this case, I believe that fear mongering in the media and movies have shaped my perspective of bears, and their motives. According to many popular movies such as Backcountry (2014), black bears are apex predators stalking human prey. This is not the case; black bears are omnivorous with diets consisting primarily of roots, fruits, and animals such as fish.

This experience left me questioning my views on other large animals such as sharks that are brutally cast as the villain, thirsty for human flesh. I know this is scientifically incorrect and I hope that others will be able to come to this realization as well. Overall, this experience has inspired me to advocate on behalf of the animals unjustly portrayed as bloodthirsty, so that people can see the true awesomeness of animals like the American black bear.