Adventures of the Blue-eyed Bear

The Blue-eyed Bear wants to help collect space junk!

The Blue-eyed Bear is going into space by way of the Space Shuttle Discovery! The BE Bear doesn’t usually use human conveyance, but if you want to go into outer space, the Shuttle is the best way. The Bear is going as part of the NASA program Faces in Space. Her real mission is to try and capture some of the space junk that  is collecting around the Earth from  50+ years of Humans dumping their mess. The Junk is getting so dense its becoming a danger. The BE Bear thinks if she is successful maybe NASA will deploy a crew of bears on a clean-up mission. Such a mission might prove to Humans the importance of bears and it could provide a new home for her and/or some of her wandering kin before the ice totally melts.

Discovery blasts off with the BE Bear from the Kennedy Space Center Nov 1st at 4:40 PM EDT. The mission is STS-133. The crew will be heading to the International Space Station to deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4 and the Multipurpose Logistics Module. Stay tuned to see if the BE Bear will enjoy the ride!

The Blue-eyed Bear's Mission patch.

Bear meets Badger

The Blue-eyed bear has found a Welsh badger (meles meles) and doesn’t think this Brock looks dangerous. Brock is the Celtic word for Badger it can be translated as “grey”. It seems that some humans think think that badgers spread the disease TB to cattle through their urine. Humans want to shoot the badgers to stop the spread of the disease in cattle. All this is to happen in May of 2011. Some humans those of the Badger Trust are trying to stop this proposed badger cull. Apparently there is no good scientific proof to show that the cattle actually get TB from badgers or that killing the badgers will eliminate the TB. All studies have been inconclusive. So maybe they should look at the problem starting with how the cattle are handled. But there’s that old adage “shoot first and ask questions latter”. That is generally how humans solve their problems no matter how much pain they cause.

Badgers are one of the largest natural land mammals left in Wales and the Land of Eng. The bear had been eliminated from that land thousands of years ago. So the B-E Bear better lie low or she may get her butt shot too!

Bagders are great excavators; they dig complex burrows called setts that can house a family group or a single badger. Badgers like some bears are omnivores, They eat insects fruit, roots, small mammals etc.  Badgers are also like bears in that they have great determination and focus.  They can be independent and confident, yet fierce in their protection of their home turf and family. Badgers hibernate in the winter so the B-E Bear will soon have to say goodbye to her new friend Brock. Hopefully, he will not have to awake to guns pointed down his sett in the spring.

Please Don't Shoot!