Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. 💞

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

Beloved by 86.47% of the web.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

Bears in a Boat

A bear enclosure at Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire flooded so the zookeepers gave the bears a swan boat to entertain them because as everyone knows, black bears are often mollified by large watercraft shaped like other animals, though you never want to give them a boat shaped like a vole for obvious reasons. The bears are called Harvard, Maple, Colorado, and Aspen, and I might be losing my mind because I stg there are 5 bears in this picture? Deputy Head of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington mused the bears were “immediately intrigued” by the boat, though admittedly I only quoted him here so I could use the phrase Deputy Head of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington, which is about the most best combination of job title and name I’ve ever heard.

But for real, how many bears do you see?

bearsinswanboat.jpg

(via Present & Correct)

Comments  10

Sort by: thread — thread . latest . faves

Richard Heppner Jr.

There are definitely 5 bears. One in the bird boat. One boarding the bird boat. Two behind the bird boat. And one with a bird on its back.

A
Aaron CohenMOD

Someone's lying to us about the number of bears and it's possible it's Deputy Director of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington.

A
Alex S

It seriously looks like there are 5 bears in both pictures in the BBC article. Both are captioned explicitly as 4 bears.

A
Alex S

Ok I think I figured it out, the bear on land is not counted in the boating foursome. That one is cropped out of the picture in Woburn Safari's tiktok video

Caroline G.

Definitely looks like 5. The website for the safari park says that there are eleven black bears living in the enclosure, so it's very possible the reporter from the BBC can't count.

S
Stefan

Nice try Gul Madred. There! are! four! bears!

K
KitchenBeard

It's time to ask Deputy Director of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington how many bears Deputy Director of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington thinks are in the picture that Deputy Director of Carnivores, Tommy Babbington provided.

M
Monica

five bears

M
Matt Vaughn

But did you see the man in the gorilla suit walk past as you counted the bears?!?!

Frances Perkinsale

🩷

This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!