In October of 2009, the world was informed that a Russian circus bear on ice skates had attacked and killed a man in Kyrgyzstan -- his trainer. According to news reports, it was “unclear what caused the bear to attack.” 

I know what caused the bear to attack. 

It was a bear on ice skates.

I don’t know what more you need to say about the situation. Bears don’t like ice skating. They don’t seem to like any of the winter sports, actually.  Vancouver is not expecting a large turn-out of bears this year at the Olympics, and it’s not because they don’t have America Express cards.

 Bears don’t ski; bears don’t skate; bears don’t luge. 

When was the last time you weren’t able to get tickets to see ‘Stars on Ice’  because the bears had bought them all?

When was the last time you  were hiking and you stumbled across a momma bear and her cub practicing their compulsory ice dancing routine? “Forget hibernating!  We’ve got to nail these triple Salchows!” 

 When you go to Yellowstone National Park, do the rangers warn you that no matter how cute the bears are, you must not give them your ice skates because, “When you give bears ice skates, they become hooked on ice skating and they will no longer show any interest in normal bear activities like hibernating, and eating berries. Last winter we found three bears on the upper lake starved to death – they were still wearing their skates."

As a matter of fact, I don’t think bears even like circuses all the much, either.  Have you ever heard about a bear running away from the circus and taking that giant beach ball and the flaming hoop with him? If I had to bet money on it, I would say that bears in general do not like any sort of human-type sporting activity, at all. Bears don’t race in the Tour de France.  Bears don’t bet on the Super Bowl or ride horses in the Kentucky Derby. They’re bears!  They have their own sports, like seeing how many salmon they can cram into their mouth in one day.

The news report of this incident went on to say that “experts” were consulted to examine the bear, in order to try to determine what had caused the bear to so suddenly give up his ice-skating career.  Gee, I don’t know . . . perhaps there was a union dispute?  Maybe the bear wanted a bigger percentage of the profits from the petting zoo or maybe the dancing elephants were stealing his thunder.

Maybe somebody was having an affair with the bear’s wife? Maybe the bear had always wanted to play professional hockey, and he found ice skating supremely emasculating. Maybe he had been to a special “training camp” in Pakistan and had come back with all sorts of radical ideas. Or maybe, he killed because he’s a bear!  

The bigger question in my mind is, why don’t all the bears "go berserk" and kill their trainers? Why do any of them put up with the outfits and the noise and the silly hats?  The health benefits?   I think it’s time that we left the animals alone, all the animals,  the pony-jumping horses, the volleyball-playing seals, the piano-pecking chickens. 

I mean, if a bear climbs over the fence in your backyard and starts bouncing on your trampoline, that’s great! Film it with your iPhone and put on YouTube where it belongs. If your neighbor’s white tiger voluntarily walks into your kitchen and starts leaping over your banana’s foster with some apparent glee, stand back and enjoy it. But it’s 2010, and it's time for humans to start concentrating our efforts on humiliating other humans, and to stop trying to make  giraffes get jobs at the mall. After all, isn’t that why we invented reality tv?