Talk:Bear/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Why is this article locked?

I had no idea bears were so controversial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.205.24.53 (talk) 18:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It appears somebody was not satisfied with the heavy emphasis on the evolutionary aspects of the article and vandalized it. Whether I agree with the heavy emphasis or not, it's totally inappropriate behavior to vandalize the article.  —CobraA1 19:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

In Bible

The line "The term "a bereaved bear" (דב שכול), derived from this Biblical source" is incorrect. The term is actually derived from Hosea 13:8. Someone with access, please correct this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.118.194 (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It's likely that both passages contributed to the phrase. Unless we have good historical evidence otherwise, I'm inclined to leave it as it is for now.  —CobraA1 20:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Old talk

Does anyone have any information on the actual origin of the phrase "To try like a bear" listed in the Figures of Speech section? I've never heard it before and a google search for it reveals all of 11 results -- several of which are verbatim to the wikipedia article and appear to use it as their source. None of the 2-3 sites presenting unique usage of the term reference pursuit of the opposite sex at all in their context. Possibly the result of a non-English idiom? If this phrase is legitimate, fine, but it kind of has the feel of someone "trying like a bear" to create a new phrase. - phreyan | 11:13:30 Dec 10 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.25.140.12 (talk) 19:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This question has hung here for two months without a source or even an answer, I have removed the phrase from the article. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Behaviour

I think this page could use a section on the behaviour or personality of the bear. Does anyone have an expertise on this? --84.13.174.29 (talk) 10:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• Always a bit difficult with groups of different animals, like this one; not all species of bear behave in the same way, after all. However, individual species pages (such as brown bear) should be useful in this regard. Anaxial (talk) 12:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• Good point. For example, if you encounter a brown bear up close, chances are actually pretty good that you will not be attacked, especially if you know how to behave. If you encounter a polar bear, and you don't have any heavy weaponry on your side, you should just make peace with whatever higher power you may believe in, because you are going to die, and soon. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• The family as a whole has a good treatment in the new Handbook of the Mammals of the World, so I will endeavour over the next few weeks to deal with the behaviour (amongst other things) of the bears. Hopefully I will be able to expand, as requested, the section on biology. It also strikes me that the in culture bit could use some pruning and citing. Fortunately HMW has some excellent information on humans and bears drawn from all across the world. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting papers to include in expansion/revision

Sørensen, Ole (2008). "Predation by a Golden Eagle on a Brown Bear Cub". 19 (2): 190–193. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• The University of Pittsburg and American Noviates links don't work.
• There are several links to DAB pages British Lion, Bruin, Canine, Diurnal, Great Bear, McMahon
• Ursidae links to self redirect

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:31, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I will take the time to fix those sometime this weekend. Pretty easy fixes. Tim1357 (talk) 12:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bear/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sasata (talk) 07:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Bear is an important, high-traffic article that deserves good workover. Unfortunately, this article has arrived at GAN prematurely. This main deficiency is the lack of citations, and lack of source diversity. There are simply far too many paragraphs (sometimes entire sections) without a single citation, and several others where a citation appears somewhere in the middle of the paragraph, so that the following sentences are unsourced. Because the research involved in attributing these unsourced bits is time-consuming (I know, I've been there!), I will have to quick-fail the GAN; please rectify this before returning the article to GAN. While I'm here, I'll list some other things that could help improve the article:

• use convert templates to give both metric and imperial units

 Done Beeblebrox (talk) 20:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• there's bursts of unexplained or confusing jargon in the text that needs to be better explained. Examples:

• "Even among its primitive species, such as C. minor, it exhibits typical ursid synapomorphic dentition such as posteriorly oriented M2 postprotocrista molars"
• "The dental formula for living bears is: " I shouldn't have to go to another article to figure out what this means. Also, where's the ref?

• The vocalizations section should be converted to prose form (and add a ref)

• wikilinking destiny appears to be low. For example, the section on breeding has no links. I would suggest linking sexual maturity, litter, estrus. Remember that terms that may seem obvious to you may not be so to the grade 9 student reading about the topic.

 Done except for the "evolutionary relationships" section, which is practically written in Latin. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• The "Names", "Myth and legend", "Symbolic use" look more like assorted collections of interesting (but largely unsourced) facts that need to be developed into paragraphs.

• Reference formatting needs a makeover as well, several refs are little more than bare URLs; ideally, all refs would be in proper citation templates

• A couple of those books in Further reading look like they would have been good sources for the article; a quick check of Amazon selections (category nature/bear) reveals quite a few other books that might be consulted.

• In the section on Diet and interspecific conflict I think it would be more accurate to say "interspecific conflict" rather than "interspecies conflict". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alyjohnsonkurts (talk • contribs) 00:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The Blue Bear?

From the end of the "evolutionary relationships" section: "There is also supposed to be a very rare large bear in China called the blue bear, which presumably is a type of black bear. This animal has never been photographed." There is no source for this. I have seen what is referred to as a "blue bear" or a "glacier bear" at the Alaska Zoo, but I don't think there was any mention of it being from China. It is more or less a black bear that lives in the far north, with a bluish tint to it's fur, and it is more shy around humans, even at the zoo. Anyway, without any source I'm thinking this should be removed. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, I did find an article here on the Tibetan Blue Bear, but it's not a giant black bear. Glacier Bear is a redirect to American Black Bear, so that jives with my experience. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've changed it to read "There is also the very rare Tibetan Blue Bear, which is a type of brown bear. This animal has never been photographed." Beeblebrox (talk) 20:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Bear market

Here's a citation for the figure of speech:

bear at the Online Etymology Dictionary

I've found that site to be reliable and, while he does not give a specific source for this usage, he does give a date, and his Introduction lists some of the more comprehensive sources he's used.

For what it's worth, I find this explanation more plausible than the one given in the current article. Don't most four-legged animals, including bulls, spend much of their time looking downward?

Fcy (talk) 16:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Cultural References

I think the pop culture references to bears should be removed from the "Myth and Legend" section, seeing as the topics are unrelated. Messenger of Fire (talk) 22:13, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I also think that this sentence: "This recurrent motif was used by the Church as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over Paganism, represented by the fiery.[35]" should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Messenger of Fire (talk • contribs) 23:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Not such a big deal perhaps, but the Finnish word 'karhu' is originally just another one of those hundreds of euphemisms, referring to the fur. There has been a lot of debate about what's the real name you mustn't say out loud (speaking of the devil etc.) but the strongest candidate is 'oksi' or 'ohto' which in written language was changed into 'otso' that the article mentions. Malitsu (talk) 08:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion/question about "Teddy Bear" section

I always believed that teddy bears were named after President Theodore Roosevelt. If this is true, then it should be added to the article. If it is not true, then perhaps a note of this common misconception should be included in the article.

I think the story went something like this: Theodore and his buddies went on a hunting trip. They were having absolutely no luck. By the end of the trip, they still hadn't shot a single animal, so his friends brought Teddy an old, sick/lame bear to shoot so he wouldn't come back empty handed. Teddy refused to shoot the animal. Somehow the newspapers got a hold of the story. A toymaker red the story and decided to name his stuffed bears "teddies" in honor of Theodore. If I remember correctly, Theodore absolutely hated it.

I don't know if this story is true or not but I think I learned it in school, so it deserves a little investigating.

Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 01:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The article Teddy bear repeats this story, with a number of supporting citations. I suppose the question is, whether it belongs here, since teddy bears are not (obviously) actual bears, which are the subject of this article. I'd say not, since it seems overly tangential, and we already have a link to the article that does mention it. Anaxial (talk) 06:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. It didn't occur to me to check Teddy bear. Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 12:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)