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Shot bears aren’t supposed to drown (Good News Week 7/7/08: Strange But True)

A Florida biologist has saved a wild black bear from drowning due to the effects of a tranquiliser dart. Exactly how a tranquiliser dart caused him to save a bear, is still uncertain.

Adam Warwick loves nothing more than stripping off and diving into icy lakes to rescue giant carnivores. That’s why all his mates call him ‘Stumpy’.

Lucky he was there to save him, or the bear could have had a lovely, peaceful death.

He later drowned the bear to save it from being shot again.

Phhh. Who hasn’t rescued a tranquilised bear from drowning.

Of course, Alligator Point isn’t always full of bears. It’s normally full of alligators.

He wasn’t that scared of the bear. He knew it was no match for the alligators.

The frightened bear ran into the water after being shot, and got 25 metres out before becoming drowsy. When biologist Adam Warwick swam out to rescue it, the bear reared up to attack him before keeling over backwards. So ungrateful! I’m surprised he didn’t just let it drown.

He dragged the bear to the shore. Where its mates were hiding in the bushes, waiting for him…

Since the rescue, they’ve become best of friends. They often get together now to catch up over a few pots of honey and a bloody moose carcass.

And the bear swears that, any time Adam’s shot with a tranq-dart and nearly drowns, he’ll be there. To tear him open and feed on his innards. / on his warm and tasty entrails.

After the rescue, the biologist became highly agitated, and had to be tranquilised. / put down.

The bear was later released in a forest, free to terrorise anew.

The bear was later released in the forest, but for safety, now has little floaties and a swimming cap on.

The bear was later released in a forest. The wildlife officers are looking for a bit more of a challenge. / That way if he has to be tranquilised again he’ll have to run miles to drown himself.

They decided not to shoot the huge bear, but just move it to a forest where they could hunt it for sport.

The people of Alligator Point didn’t want the wildlife officers to kill the bear, they just wanted it moved to the forest. One day, that bear’s going to make someone a great trophy.

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I jumped in,” said the man, “But then I noticed there was a drowning bear in the water, so I thought ‘why not’?”

The drowning bear had to be saved by biologist Adam Warwick. It wasn’t swimming between the flags, so the coastguards refused to touch it.

It was one thing to see him drag the 170 kilo bear from the lake, but quite another to see him give mouth-to-snout.

Unfortunately to a wild bear, mouth-to-mouth is an activity usually followed by mouth-to-gut.

He doesn’t normally save giant bears from drowning, but he really wanted that honey reward.

Like the bear would have saved him if he was tranquilised.

The irony is, if a bear rescued a man who’s been tranquilised from drowning, it’d get shot.

He actually broke the world record for freestyle with a tranquilised bear.

TV executives have jumped on the idea, and are now recommissioning “Baywatch”, as “Bearwatch”.

He discovered he was so good at that he’s decided to enter the next season of So You Think You Can Rescue A Drowning Bear.

The man swam to shore with a 170 kilo black bear – but you should’ve seen the one that got away.

The bear claims that it wasn’t entering the water to escape, but just to clean itself. “You know what we do in the woods, dontcha?”

The bear was paralysed, still ready to attack Adam by the time he got it to shore. The wildlife officers agreed that if the bear woke up during the rescue, they’d definitely tranquilise it. Or Adam. Either would do.

That’s actually his favourite party trick: tranquilise a giant carnivore, chase it into a large body of water, save it from drowning, then do it all over again!

The bear had been roaming the residential area at Alligator Point, and the locals were terrified that the even alligators wouldn’t be able to protect them. / were frightened for the alligators. / were terrified. Alligator-repellent is useless against bears! / were terrified. “A bear! This alligator-repellent is useless!”

The bear is shocked that it was even tranqed in the first place. It didn’t mean any harm. It was just looking for that bitch Goldilocks. / The bear had been roaming the residential area at Alligator Point, but it swears it wasn’t out to hurt any innocent people. It just wanted to get even with that bitch Goldilocks.

The bear reared up to lunge at Adam, but then froze, tumbled backwards and began to sink. Adam grabbed the bear and dragged it to sure, luckily not confusing it with a stuffed bear that was bobbing about in the same area. (What are the chances? Not high, I’ll wager. A highly unlikely occurrence indeed. And yet not in the least bit contrived.)

After the rescue the bear said “Thanks… … … … … for the rescue.” The man asked “Why the big pause?” to which the bear responded “I guess I’m still groggy from the tranquiliser dart.”

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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