History Main / BearsAreBadNews

Contrast with BearyFunny and BearyFriendly, which are about more positive depictions of bears.[[note]]The first of these, BTW, is ''not'' TruthInTelevision. Pandas in real life can be ''very'' bad news. But that's covered on that trope page.[[/note]]

* {{Franchise/Transformers}}:

--> '''Lewis''': (''in his journal'') I find that the curiossity of our party is pretty well satisfyed with rispect to this anamal.

* In 2004, the city government of the small town of Grafton, New Hampshire was taken over by libertarians who stopped enforcement of many regulations - including rules prohibiting leaving out food and waste that might attract bears. Several town residents started deliberately feeding the local bears; which attracted them to everyone's homes. When they couldn't eat garbage; they would go after backyard chickens and outdoor pets or try to get into the houses. Many residents eventually moved out of town. Documented in "A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear".

Another issue is that bears are very intelligent (often regarded as being very close to chimpanzees) and they actually have individual personalities. This adds to their unpredictability as to how a bear reacts to a certain situation will entirely depend on both the bear itself and the mood it's in at the time.

And everything started again. The birds chirping, brook babbling, and gentle breeze rustling the leaves. And the bear slowly lowered his paw. Then the bear put his paws together, and bowed his massive head and said, "Dear Lord, please bless this food we are about to eat."''\\

Contrast with PandaingToTheAudience, BearyFunny and BearyFriendly, which are about more positive depictions of bears.[[note]]The first of these, BTW, is ''not'' TruthInTelevision. Pandas in real life can be ''very'' bad news. But that's covered on that trope page.[[/note]]

His teeth and jowls have ripped the hearts fae many a highland man!'']]

[[caption-width-right:350:''He's bigger than a Cuillin, killin' armies with his paws\\
Mor'du is never happy till the blood runs from his jaws\\
He murders in the mountains and he fights with ev'ry clan\\

* The Nazis probably felt this way about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear) Voytek]]. A bear... [[BoisterousBruiser that drinks, smokes, fights, and carries ammo]]. However, in his personal life Voytek was known as [[GentleGiant a kind and lovable fuzzball]], who loved sweets, baths, and hanging out with his buddies. A case where he brought this upon someone: one day when Voytek went to the steam baths, he found an enemy spy hiding in them. He roared and backhanded the spy, who promptly surrendered, presumably not having expected a bear to blow his cover. So he was punching Nazis before Harrison Ford made it cool.

** Played straight by others. The OriginStory of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Tower_ Devil's Tower]] in Wyoming involves one or more gigantic bears trying to kill frightened children and the Creator raising the tower up under the kids to save them.

[[Music/MyChemicalRomance So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose. Maybe they’ll leave you alone (but not me)]]

* Les Stroud, aka the ''Series/{{Survivorman}}'', gets dropped into environments all over the world armed with nothing bigger than a small knife and spends the week by himself demonstrating how to survive in that situation, and has made a point of never having a firearm with him despite being in environments with the potential for hostile wildlife (plus, hunting for food would be easier). The exception was when he filmed an episode on Baffin Island, and authorities ''required'' him to carry a rifle, specifically because of the danger of polar bears.

Contrast with to PandaingToTheAudience, BearyFunny and BearyFriendly, which are about more positive depictions of bears.[[note]]The first of these, BTW, is ''not'' TruthInTelevision. Pandas in real life can be ''very'' bad news. But that's covered on that trope page.[[/note]]

** Also, David kills a bear and a lion that threaten his flock. People tend to forget that although he was only 12ish when he fought the giant Goliath, he was a pretty badass kid.

Just as [[SillySimian monkeys]] and [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] are used to make something funnier or cuter, bears have a knack for scaring the crap out of everyone. Polar and brown bears are the largest extant land-based predators in the world, with a penchant for aggressive behavior, so it's easy to see why.[[note]]Polar bears, the largest of bear species, can weigh up to ''1,500 pounds (680 kg)'' and have been known to hunt walruses and beluga whales.[[/note]] Because of this, throwing a bear into a scene is the best way to let the audience know that our heroes [[FromBadToWorse have gone beyond rock bottom]] and are now totally screwed.

* This trope may be the reason ''the word "bear" exists in the first place.'' Linguists believe that the Proto-Indo-European word for "bear" (''*h₂ŕ̥tḱos'', which evolved into the Latin ''ursus'', Greek ''arktos'', et al.) may have become taboo because people feared that [[SpeakOfTheDevil actually using the word would summon a bear]]. As a result, various Germanic peoples began calling them "brown/the brown one"[[labelnote:*]]Or maybe "wild animal" -- sometime after Grimm and Verner's laws, nearly all gw merged with b.[[/labelnote]] as a euphemism, resulting in the English ''bear'' and ''bruin'', German ''Bär'', et al. Other languages have their own euphemisms:
** Even ''*h₂ŕ̥tḱos'' itself isn't much better -- it roughly translates to "destruction/destroyer". Appropriate that as well as coming to mean "bear", "arktos" also came to refer [[GrimUpNorth to the region around the North Pole]]. This also means that the Latin name for the Eurasian brown bear -- ''Ursus arctos arctos'' -- simply means "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Destroyer Destroyer Destroyer]]".
** Literature/{{Beowulf}} is probably a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning kenning]] referring to bears that means "bee-wolf" (y'know, because they like honey).
** The Russian word ''medved'' (honey-eater) is a (Proto-Slavic -- compare Polish ''niedźwiedź'', Czech ''medvěd'', Croatian ''medvjed'', even the not Slavic but geographically close Hungarian ''medve'') euphemism for the now-lost original word for "bear", but ''medved'' itself became taboo in the medieval period. Instead of naming the animal directly, people would refer to it with nicknames, either endearingly-pejorative ("the hairy one", "the clumsy one") or respectful ("the master"); a common practice was to give it a similar-sounding human name ("Mikhail [[UsefulNotes/{{Patronymic}} Potapych]]", "Misha"), a practice which also became popular in UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}n language (the bear was called ''Moş Martin'' -- "Old Uncle Martin"). In Polish, shortened form ''miś'' was used. Among the Szeklers, Hungarians living in the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Romania, the corresponding nickname would be "Mackó úr", which more or less amounts to "Mr. Teddy". Though they have a good reason to use the nicknames, as the nicknames are all from areas where bears still very much roam free and ''can and will'' pop up.
** In Finnish there's ''otso, kontio'', and ''mesikämmen'' (the last meaning "honey-paws"). The official name ''karhu'' was also originally a euphemism.

* Russia's animal symbol is the bear; this was memorably used in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwdcmjBgNA one of Ronald Reagan's campaign ads]], but [[NationalAnimalStereotypes depictions of Russia as a bear or identifying Russia with bears]] goes back to at least the 19th century. A related nation, the Carpatho-Ruthenians/Rusyns, have a ''[[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Karpatska_Ukraina-2_COA.svg/2000px-Karpatska_Ukraina-2_COA.svg.png red bear as the official national coat of arms]]'', but they share none of the infamous reputation of their bigger brother by virtue of living with no sovereign state of their own.
* You know the scientific name for the grizzly bear? ''Ursus arctos horribilis''.

* Campgrounds in the more remote areas of Canada typically offer literature and lectures by the park ranger on proper bear safety. Despite this, examples abound of tourists failing to abide by rules like "don't keep food in the tent" and "don't get between a mother bear and her cubs" seriously and paying a heavy price.
** Brown bears/grizzlies are only found in a few remote areas of the U.S. (Alaska, the northern Cascades, and a band of mountains running from Yellowstone up to the Canadian border), but the smaller, shyer, more widespread black bears can still be very dangerous-- especially if they get too comfortable around humans. So once again, for the people in the back: '''''Do not feed the bears. Do not approach the bears. Carry spray when you go hiking. Store your food[[note]]and any scented products like toothpaste or shampoo[[/note]] safely, and pitch your tent upwind of it. Stay out of the woods in the spring, when the bears are hungriest.'''''

* Creator/StephenColbert puts bears in the Threat Down for a very good reason. (See Live Action TV, also Phil Ken Sebben's dislike of bears.) WordOfGod says that his fear of them is partly based on a recurring dream, and partly on the movie ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067388/ Man in the Wilderness]]''. Also partly because his father, who was a doctor, used a hypothetical bear-mauling as an example of the kind of thing you can brush off with ease with the aid of modern medicine. Which explains the FridgeBrilliance of his referring to pundit [[Series/TheOReillyFactor Bill O' Reilly]] as 'papa bear'. Bears are the number one threat to America, and Billo [[TropeCodifier is largely responsible for]] the modern TV personality Colbert professes to parody. Therefore, ''he's the greatest of the greatest threats to America''.
* When the Stock Market goes down, it's said to be in a ''bear'' market. It's said to be a reference to the way they attack; they swipe ''down'' with their paw. Along with the fact that bears hibernate.
* Legendary NFL linebacker Dick Butkus was dubbed "The Most Feared Man in the Game." Who did he play for? That's right, the Chicago Bears.

* In Finnish, an infuriated person is said to be "mad as a bear shot in the arse".
* Gold Rush miners used to pit bears against everything. The bear always won, so they got bored and imported some lions. The lion would roar and charge, the bear would crush their skull with one blow.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankebetsu_brown_bear_incident The Sankebetsu brown bear incident]]. [[NightmareFuel Not at all a page to read before going to bed]]. According to [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18483_the-5-creepiest-serial-killers-who-were-animals.html Cracked]], it involved 50 hunters ''failing'' to get a bear. (#4 on the list.)
* Bear-hunting was a favourite pastime of medieval Russian princes. Subverted in that, with armed retainers, clever tactics, and special-issue anti-bear spears (special ''rogatina''s with oak handles and silver heads), it actually wasn't all that difficult to kill a bear. Pseudo-Demetrius I, the wacky early 17th century impostor that threw the country into bloody infighting, was very popular with the commoners of Moscow because of his badass stunt where he used his freakish strength to not only stop a bear in mid-pounce with his rogatina (that was standard practice), but also ''throw it backwards over his head''. So if bears wrote Website/TVTropes, they would have to make a trope for "Russian Princes and Political Opportunists That Pretend To Be Such Are Bad News".
* [[TheBerserker Berserkers]]. Norse warriors who, among other rituals, went into battle wearing bearskins. If a bear's scary, one would imagine a person who you assumed killed a bear to get its hide would be a tough customer... [[HornyVikings The Norse]] were scary enough, but God help you if you were attacked by a berserker. The name even MEANS "bear-shirt wearer".
** While "ber" means "bear" in Old Norse, it is not a name given to boys [[TemptingFate out of fear for calling forth a bear]]. That being said, [[WorthyOpponent they still respected the power and ferocity of the bear]] to the point that they created the name "Bjørn." A very notable holder of this name was ''Bjørn Ironside'', a Viking ruler and one of the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok.
** The [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever noble title]] "baron" derives from an Old Frankish word that originally just meant "warrior". This word ''might'' (linguists disagree vehemently) in turn be derived from a Germanic word for "bear", either because warriors' strength was compared to a bear's, or because warriors sometimes fought bears.
* Sort of a weird example, but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLykQrCLKE8 this]] is SFW, yet so... bizarre.

* Subversion: There was a drug bust of a Marijuana farm guarded [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill by 10 black bears]]. They were so docile and domesticated that all that happened was that one of them sat on a cop car's hood for an hour, and then they just watched everything.

* For the prehistoric giant cave bear, this was inverted. For them, everything was worse with {{humans|KillWantonly}}. [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11096945 We pushed them out of their living space and then hunted them to extinction]].
** While that was going on in Eurasia, prehistoric Native Americans had to deal with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctodus Giant Short-Faced Bears]], 1800-pound brutes that were twice as tall as humans when standing upright. These massive beasts are also believed to have gone extinct due to competition with humans, but unlike cave bears and modern bears (with the exception of the polar bear), they were almost entirely carnivorous, using their size and strength to chase sabertooth cats and dire wolves away from their kills or attack slow-moving animals. Its South American relative ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctotherium Arctotherium]]'' was even larger.

** On [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes that subject]], the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 TU-95 'Bear']] [[CoolPlane strategic bomber]]. The angrier Russia gets, the more and farther afield Bear flights go, making them ''very'' bad news indeed.
* Despite their cute appearance, pandas are still bears, and they will [[https://web.archive.org/web/20140718033814/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/drunk-man-mauled-by-panda/story-e6frg6uo-1111112247263 maul you for hugging them]] unless they've been [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_xFEWvyu4 trained for that.]]
* Most large carnivores attempt to avoid contact with humans unless they learn that humans are an easy source of food (either scavenging human refuse or hunting humans). Polar bears don't make any effort to avoid humans and appear to consider them to be exactly the same as everything else that's not another adult polar bear: food.
** There is an old Inuit story of a woman who went to live among strange people. She became a burden, and so they placed her in a boat, took her out to sea and cast her overboard. She struggled to regain the side of the boat, but they cut off her fingers to keep her away. As she died in the water, she became Sedna, the goddess of the sea and mother of all beasts. Her fingers became the walrus and seals and whales that the people would hunt to eat. But her middle finger became the white bear. When the other animals see a man, they try to run away. But when the white bear sees a man, he is filled with revenge and tries to kill the person who he believes murdered the woman from whose finger he was born. Wise Inuit stay away from the white bear...
*** ...so, when you see a polar bear, it's the Goddess giving you the finger. Makes sense.
** Both polar and brown bears are [[http://www.all-creatures.org/bear/b-bearintel.html just as]] [[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/arctic-bears/bear-intelligence/779/ intelligent]] as they are persistent in their stalking of prey. They have the long term memory which popular culture ascribed to elephants, they are excellent trackers and navigators on rough ground, they regularly use tools to get food or to play, and the [[DancingBear acting bear]] Bart found out how to make a bridge from a plank of wood. It's only a matter of time until they find out how to fire guns.
*** And maybe not much time, at that: the use of ''weapons'' is already a concept that they're familiar with. Inuit have reported for centuries that polar bears kill walrus by bashing them over the head with ice chunks, and a female bear fitted with a camera was recorded chucking an ice block into the water in an attempt to concuss a swimming seal.
** They're probably plotting as we speak. In a few centuries, we'll see bears roaming the streets instead of humans, and they'll write a version of this page about humans. Oh, wait, such a page [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters already exists]].
* Subverted with [[http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1890462 this]] video. Apparently, they make hockey better. The Alaska U Nanooks [[http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5885941/space-hockey-bear-destroys-the-universe-2 disagree]]. Bears only know how to destroy.

* Everything's worse with a bear market, despite financial advisors' [[https://www.edwardjones.com/groups/ejw_content/@ejw/@us/@graphics/documents/web_content/web034039.pdf attempts to subvert the trope]].
* One of the knights who killed UsefulNotes/ThomasBecket was Reginald [=FitzUrse=], "son of the bear".
** Even better, "Fitz" in those days indicated that you were the acknowledged but not legitimate son of someone. That's right: his name means ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast bastard son of a bear]].''

* People often think [[TooDumbToLive it's a good idea to feed or tease a bear]] and end up getting attacked. [[NeverMyFault They blame it on the bear]].
* Grizzly bears are bad news to the smaller black bears. It's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_black_bear#Habitat hypothesized]] that the latter has adapted to avoid confrontation with the former, including climbing trees, being active at different times of the day, and residing in inaccessible places (i.e. with thick vegetation and mountainous terrain). Confrontations between the two species can range from tense to outright violent.
** And where the grizzly bears go away, the black bears flood in. As said by wildlife conservationists, stressing out the importance of grizzly conservation: "Would you rather deal with one grizzly bear per square mile, or ''ten black bears'' in the same area?
* Honorary mention: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Jenatsch Jörg Jenatsch]] was killed by a man wearing a bear costume.
* Purely on the visual side, in 2009 a German zoo made news for its bears all getting an affliction where they lost almost all their fur. Usually, furry animals end up looking silly when you remove all the hair. Bears, on the other hand, look like [[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/04/article-1225042-0711FC57000005DC-753_634x693.jpg something that belongs in a D&D monster manual]], which is sorely lacking such a creature with a punning name, called a "Grisly Bare".
* An old hunter's joke: How do you tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear? Climb a tree. If the bear climbs up after you and kills you, it's a black bear. If it knocks the tree down and kills you, it's a grizzly bear. And if there's no tree in sight, it's a polar bear.
* Not even a Goddamn ''Gummy Bear'' can avoid this trope, if [[https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-Bears/product-reviews/B008JELLCA these Amazon reviews]] of Haribo Sugar-Free Gummy Bears are to be believed.

* British National Treasure and Best Human ''Awesome/BrianBlessed'' is an exception to the rule. While camping at the North Pole, a polar bear entered his tent -- and the Loudest Man on Earth, in his own words, "punched it straight in its fucking face."
* Even bear cubs can be just as vicious as adults [[KillerRabbit in spite of their cute appearance]]. Cubs have sharp claws and can scratch with plenty of force. They also have sharp teeth for biting.
* There are [[https://www.amazon.com/Doesnt-Makes-Stronger-Except-Bears/dp/B01AIM7GBK T-shirts]] and [[https://www.ebay.com/itm/What-Doesnt-Kill-You-Makes-You-Stronger-Except-Bears-Will-Kill-You-Metal-Sign-/202207363188 signs]] with this [[SpoofAesop spin]] on the "makes you stronger" moral slogan:
--> "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Except for '''bears'''. Bears will '''kill you'''."
* Ilya Bryzgalov may have been a CloudCuckoolander, but he was quite honest about the fact that the only thing he feared was a bear.
-->"...but bear in the forest."

* Often found on [[https://www.youtube.com YouTube]] videos of wacky signs: a lettered sign at a Comfort Inn that says: "PETS WELCOME. EXCEPT FOR BEARS. WE'RE NOT MAKING THAT MISTAKE AGAIN."
* Even a ''dead'' polar bear can be dangerous to humans. Its liver contains toxic levels of Vitamin A and a person who ingests it can become severely ill or even die. Some of the early Arctic explorers learned this the hard way.

[[caption-width-right:350:Absolutely ''not'' a bear you'd want to cuddle with.]]

** In another one, the well-known fact that female bears are [[MamaBear fiercely protective of their offspring]] was lampooned, where the cartoon had a tired office worker absent-mindedly stepping into an elevator between a mother grizzly and her cub. (She seemed docile in the scene as shown, but according to the caption, what was about to happen would not be pleasant.)

** Elisha in [[Literature/BooksOfKings 2 Kings 2:23-24]], while walking up to Bethel, was insulted by some [[BlindIdiotTranslation bandits]]. They had called him "bald head" and implied that he had been complicit in the death of Elijah. His response? Summoning two bears to come and maul 42 of them, making this trope OlderThanFeudalism. There's a reason why this story isn't included in compilations of Bible stories meant for toddlers.

** Even ''{{God}} [[WordOfGod himself]]'' states that bears make things worse in [[Literature/BookOfAmos Amos 5:19]]: "It will be as though a man fled from a lion [[OutOfTheFryingPan only to meet a bear]]."

** Keep in mind that there's a ''very important difference'' between black bears and grizzly bears. Black bears are generally regarded as the positive aspects of the bear, being peaceable and shy. Grizzly bears are almost literally called ''AxCrazy'' in some legends.

* One possible etymology of Myth/KingArthur's name is a derivation from *''artos'', which means bear, and he sure as hell was bad news for the Saxons.

** Literature/{{Beowulf}} is probably a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning kenning]] referring to bears that literally means "bee-wolf" (y'know, because they like honey).
** The Russian word ''medved'' (honey-eater) is a (Proto-Slavic -- compare Polish ''niedźwiedź'', Czech ''medvěd'', Croatian ''medvjed'', even the not Slavic but geographically close Hungarian ''medve'') euphemism for the now-lost original word for "bear", but ''medved'' itself became taboo in the medieval period. Instead of naming the animal directly, people would refer to it with nicknames, either endearingly-pejorative ("the hairy one", "the clumsy one") or respectful ("the master"); a common practice was to give it a similar-sounding human name ("Mikhail [[UsefulNotes/{{Patronymic}} Potapych]]", "Misha"), a practice which also became popular in UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}n language (the bear was called ''Moş Martin'' -- "Old Uncle Martin"). In Polish, shortened form ''miś'' was used. Among the Szeklers, Hungarians living in the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Romania, the corresponding nickname would be "Mackó úr", which more or less amounts to "Mr. Teddy". Keep in mind, though, that they have a good reason to use the nicknames, as the nicknames are all from areas where bears still very much roam free and ''can and will'' pop up.

* What's scarier than a bear? '''A rabid bear.''' One managed to smash through a house once and savaged everything in it until it was shot to death by the owner. Note that the bear even ''head-on'' charged his jeep! If Cujo was bad, this is ''much'' worse.

** Brown bears/grizzlies are only found in a few remote areas of the U.S. (basically Alaska, the northern Cascades, and a band of mountains running from Yellowstone up to the Canadian border), but the smaller, shyer, more widespread black bears can still be very dangerous-- especially if they get too comfortable around humans. So once again, for the people in the back: '''''Do not feed the bears. Do not approach the bears. Carry spray when you go hiking. Store your food[[note]]and any scented products like toothpaste or shampoo[[/note]] safely, and pitch your tent upwind of it. Stay out of the woods in the spring, when the bears are hungriest.'''''

** While "ber" literally means "bear" in Old Norse, it is not a name given to boys [[TemptingFate out of fear for calling forth a bear]]. That being said, [[WorthyOpponent they still respected the power and ferocity of the bear]] to the point that they created the name "Bjørn." A very notable holder of this name was ''Bjørn Ironside'', a Viking ruler and one of the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok.

** Even better, "Fitz" in those days indicated that you were the acknowledged but not legitimate son of someone. That's right: his name literally means ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast bastard son of a bear]].''

* The utterly terrifying corpse paint featured in black metal bears a striking resemblance to a panda bear.

** Brown bears/grizzlies are only found in a few remote areas of the U.S. (basically Alaska, the northern Cascades, and a band of mountains running from Yellowstone up to the Canadian border), but the smaller, shyer, more widespread black bears can still be very dangerous-- especially if they get too comfortable around humans. So once again, for the people in the back: '''''Do not feed the bears. Do not approach the bears. Carry spray when you go hiking. Store your foo[[note]]and any scented products like toothpaste or shampoo[[/note]] safely, and pitch your tent upwind of it. Stay out of the woods in the spring, when the bears are hungriest.'''''

* "Literature/Kolobok": A starving wild bear tries to devour the main character.

* Used in one Appalachian folk tale. A grandmother sends her grandson to buy baking soda. The boy buys the baking soda, but on the way home, he has to cross a bridge [[TrollBridge under which a bear lives.]] The bear eats the boy. Every time a member of the family goes to see what happened to the boy, they too run into the bear and get eaten. Finally, the family's pet squirrel is the only one left, and he also comes across the bear. Before the bear can eat him, [[DavidVersusGoliath the squirrel outsmarts the bear]] and the bear coughs up the humans.

Just as [[SillySimian monkeys]] and [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins penguins]] are used to make something funnier or cuter, bears have a knack for scaring the crap out of everyone. Polar and brown bears are the largest extant land-based predators in the world, with a penchant for aggressive behavior, so it's easy to see why.[[note]]Polar bears, the largest of bear species, can weigh up to ''1500 pounds (680 kg)'' and have been known to hunt walruses and beluga whales.[[/note]] Because of this, throwing a bear into a scene is the best way to let the audience know that our heroes [[FromBadToWorse have gone beyond rock bottom]] and are now totally screwed.