Although most bears have difficulty maintaining top speed over prolonged distances, only an idiot would try to beat them in running. Here’s why…
In a famous anecdote, often remembered in companies when going through difficult times, two campers are surprised by a bear and they start running to escape the animal.
At one point, one of them says: “but why are we running? the bear is faster than us, and will catch us!“; and the other responds: “I’m not trying to outrun the bear, I’m trying to run faster than you!“.
So, can humans outrun bears, or is it a losing race from the start?
On the one hand, bears have a reputation for being cute and tender. On the other hand, they are huge, burly predatorswith jaws so powerful that they can easily crush a human skull. They’re not exactly the smartest choice for a race, explains .
But if one day someone finds themselves in the unlikely need to run away from a running bear (a real one, not the ones that eat companies), what chance do they have? A short answer is: few. The long answer is: also few, but depends on the bear. There are eight different species of bear and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the three biggest are also the fastest.
According to , the fastest bear ever recorded was a polar bearclocked in 2011 going down a road in Churchill, Canada, at an impressive speed of 56 km/h.
Os brown bears and black bears may be smaller, but with maximum speeds close to 50 km/hthey could also be fined for speeding in a locality.
Os pandas They are famous for being docile, but when threatened, they can also move quickly. Over short distances, these friendly bamboo-eaters can move at speeds that can reach, according to some estimates, around 32 km/h.
At the same speed runs the bear-kisseddespite the misleading name that is sometimes given to it, sloth bear (from the English “sloth bear”). Originally from the Indian subcontinent, these bears may have received a name associated with sloths, but they are not closely related to them — and move much faster.
Although most bears have difficulty maintaining top speed over prolonged distances, only an idiot would try to beat them in a race. Most human beings cannot run faster than 24 km/h em sprint.
So running is useless. The “three bears rule”, very popular in the United States, says that “if it is brown, lie down; if it’s black, fight; if it’s white, good night”, but experts don’t advise us to trust it alone.
The rule has the ability to be a happy rhyme in English (If it’s brown, lie down; if it’s black, fight back; if it’s white, goodnight), but the problem is that coat color can be deceiving. Black bears can be brownand grizzlies can appear black.
The one from the United States advises that “If a black bear charges and attacks you, fight with everything you have! If a grizzly bear charges and attacks you, pretend to be dead. Don’t fight back.” But, according to the said rule, anyone who catches a polar bear from the front is basically plotted…
Fortunately, there is currently no resident population of bears in Portugal. In 2019, the presence of an adult brown bear was confirmed in the Montesinho Natural Park. According to , it was an isolated individual, probably dispersed from the population of the northern Spainlinked to the Cantabrian Mountains.
confirmed news of occasional incursions of brown bears in the district of Bragança, but this species is considered extinct in our country since the 19th century.
So, in theory, we don’t need to worry about memorizing dubious rules, just because in English they make a good rhyme. We have had enough of the recent trend of having to go to weddings with “something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new”…
