the polar bear connection

People who know me well enough will know that I have a 'thing' for Polar Bears. It is a little cringing. I sometimes liken it to Britney Spears' obsession with fairies and then I feel even more silly. However, I cannot deny that whenever I see stories about polar bears the child in me gets all soppy and wants to save them.

Standon Calling Fairies @ Super Cape-Abilities

My good friend Candice Quartermain (formerly Landsman) has a similar connection with killer whales and horses. She's really grown up so when the Britney Spears association makes me feel like a muppet I remind myself of 'Landice' and allow myself to feel cool and compassionate through her inspiration. Nothing wrong with loving animals after all. In fact fairies aren't even real (I am really sorry if that statement just killed one) but I mean... they're like not animals that need protecting. Admittedly I did meet a couple of fairies recently at Standon Calling music festival who granted me a wish by virtue of a glittery fairy dusting, so I shouldn't write them off... but well... they're not Polar Bears and they looked pretty happy and safe making capes to complement their wings and pink hair.


Now one of the most wonderfully illuminating realisations I've had on my travels has been the understanding of why Polar Bears are my 'favourite'...

As a child I went to Venezuela a lot to visit my mother's side of the family. There I would witness and perhaps even empathise with my father and uncles joy as they would be tucking in to the local Venezuelan beer... POLAR BEER. As you can imagine, this year I smiled a lot to myself as I, an adult, had the opportunity to embrace two loves at the same time; beer and polar bears. And now despite realising this personal conditioning and very amusing synchronicity; I still love polar bears. Obviously. They're awesome creatures.

Recently I read that polar bears 'may need to be fed by humans to survive', and my love and kinship for this giant mammal went to another level. I was heart broken at Berlin Zoo seeing Knut looking desperately misplaced and lonely and now seeing that it might take for Polar Bears to become a nuisance to mankind for the issue to really come to the fore really makes me wonder. Without adequate sea ice for enough of the year, bears will not be able to use ice as a feeding platform to hunt their favoured prey, seals, hence will be forced to spend more time fasting on land and posing a risk to human populations on the Arctic. The future's looking pretty bleak for this beautiful animal.

Global warming is directly affecting this animal's survival and no matter where you stand on the issue, it is safe to say that mankind is mostly ignorant to the idea of loving and protecting nature if our collective behaviour is anything to go by. I mean we do have a very unfortunate and shocking tendency to kill one another in big wars that we often don't fully understand the political undertones of.

On a very basic level, littering is a classic example of ignorance. I have found myself giving 'a look' to people chucking their waste on the street biting my tongue sometimes. Some people who claim to be 'spiritual' or 'awake' or 'in love with the world'... and of course this behaviour is unconscious, forgivable and another conditioning or lack of education and we can't be expected to be perfect human beings HOWEVER I suppose this wee polar bear is getting really disappointed with it... The question I find myself pondering is; will it take mankind to absolutely destroy this planet before we come to the realisation that we cannot eat money? 

And when that time comes... will polar bears already be dead?

I sincerely hope not. 


Dear God please can we not destroy it by nuclear activity, cockroaches (one of the few animals likely to survive) and I have a very, very strained relationship.