Ode to the Maymont bears --- killed by a stupid woman and her bratty kid

This is a story with a sad ending and one that never should have occurred.

In the Richmond, Virginia area, there is a park with animals on display. Until February 18th, Maymont park had two black bears. One was an orphan that the park had gotten as a cub, and the other was a nuisance bear that wound up there because people had fed it and taught it bad habits. The bears were in an enclosure behind a fence surrounded by a barrier wall and people could see them without getting too close.

But on the 18th, a single mom decided to take her 4 year old brat to the park, and she let him run amuck and didn't pay attention as he climbed over the barrier and approached the bears. He stuck his little hand through the fencing and got bit.

Now it wasn't much of a bite, especially as bears go. He didn't lose his hand or even any fingers. In fact the kid is just fine now. But because the park felt that they had to test the bear for rabies, and because they weren't sure which bear bit the brat, both bears were killed so that the rabies test could be performed.

Neither bear had rabies as it turned out, but both of them are still dead. And they were sentenced to death by a woman who couldn't be bothered to control her kid.

Hi. I'm dead.


Now I'm personally no stranger to animal bites. In my younger days as I traveled the country on my motorcycle one summer, I managed to get nipped by a wolf in the Souix Falls, SD zoo and also by an otter in the Vancouver, BC zoo. It was my own fault both times and I had it coming, but I didn't run crying to the zoo management and cause those beautiful creatures to be killed. I just sucked it up and went on about my business.

OK, I did have to go to the zoo infirmary in South Dakota for a band-aid because it was bleeding pretty good. And they gave me a band-aid and a free tetanus shot then they booted me out and told me not to come back, as they should have. No harm, no foul and I learned that animals in a zoo are still wild.

Now zoos these days do a much better job of posting signs to that effect practically everywhere. One would also think that this so-called "mother" would have enough sense to keep her kid from climbing over a wall and approaching these once nice bears signs or no but she didn't and two bears paid with their lives.

A note left by a mourning park visitor on the now-empty bear enclosure sums it all up. It reads: "We are so sorry you are gone -- have fun in heaven."

The papers are refusing to print the name of this woman who caused the deaths of these bears. But if and when I find it out, I'll be posting it right here.