Keep your hands and feet away from the cage at all times.

OCTOBER 23 - CNN - A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday.In the incident, which happened Thursday, the 5-year-old animal killed the circus administrator, Dmitry Potapov, and mauled an animal trainer, who was attempting to rescue him. "The incident occurred during a rehearsal by the Russian state circus company troupe which was performing in Bishkek with the program, Bears on Ice," Ministry of Culture and Information director Kurmangazy Isanayev told reporters.
It is unclear what caused the bear to attack Potapov.

Really? Well, it's clear to me. It's a bear.

I've never seen a bear in the wild, but I'd guess that if I did, he wouldn't be smoking a cigar, wearing a top hat and ice skating. That's just a guess.

Here's your Word of the Day...

anthropomorphism

Attribution of human motivation, characteristics or behavior to inanimate objects, animals or natural phenomena.

Every so often an elephant escapes his cell at the circus and tramples people, a bear attacks or some other animal gets fed up with his human-like living conditions and resorts to his natural instincts - and we act surprised. "Oh God, I don't know why that pet shark bit his leg off. We named him Flappy." Flappy the shark.

The sad part (other than keeping an animal captive and making him ice skate) is that they shot and killed it after the attack, as though that was their best option of animal control - other than the ice skates, top hat and a big chain.

If you took one of us and dropped us into the woods, we'd spend days looking for a road so we could find a McDonald's or Starbucks, eat something and make a phone call. Those are our instincts.

If you dress-up a bear and make him skate around in a circle he'll eventually find a way to kill you.

Why is that so shocking?