Bear Size ~

[brotherbear]

I was just remembering an article I had read some years ago in Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, or some other similar magazine. It was written by a park ranger. He had drawn a picture of a black bear on a sheet of plywood, cut it out with a jigsaw, and painted it. The article had pictures; he was a good artist. He carefully placed this wooden bear near a road in the foothills of North Carolina, leading towards the Smokey Mountains. The bear was standing in green grass with lots of foliage behind him. From the road, from a passing car, he did not appear so one-dimensional. 
Just up the road from the wooden bear was a gas station/country store. The ranger spend several hours there; the lady behind the cash register was in on the plan. Nearly every customer who had come from that direction mentioned seeing the bear. The lady would ask about the size of the bear. Every single person estimated anywhere from 500 to 1,000 pounds. According to the ranger who created the bear-of-wood said that a black bear of those proportions would weigh roughly 250 pounds. 
I found this story to be very interesting. Anytime someone, even a hunter, estimates the weight of a bear, I take it with a grain of salt. Only someone who works closely with bears and has some experience in weighing bears can give a close-to-accurate weight estimation of a bear just by looking at it. Reply