Judo throw saves man from bold bear
Aug 19 / MDN
MATSUMOTO, Nagano -- A man used a judo throw to scare off a bear that attacked him while he was picking mushrooms on a Nagano Prefecture mountain Monday afternoon, police said Tuesday... bear bit Yamaguchi on the hand and left thigh and he responded by hitting it on the nose and in the stomach. When he used a judo technique to hurl the bear, it ran away...

Was it a real bear or an Australian "Drop-Bear". I guess it all depends on the type of mushrooms he was picking!!!

GomiGirl wrote:Was it a real bear or an Australian "Drop-Bear". I guess it all depends on the type of mushrooms he was picking!!!

The Great Australian Mystery - Drop Bears
Drop bears, as their name would suggest, are a mutant variety of Koala (which, of course, is not a bear at all) which live in the lower overhanging branches of trees, and will drop onto the unwary traveller passing below.

History does not record anyone ever having survived a drop bear attack, so there is very little information available as to how these attacks are performed.
Suffice it to say that a significant number of JAPANESE vistors disappear without trace in the forests of New South Wales every year...


I must run out and buy my Auroran Drop Bear repellant.

If you have never seen the documentary on the making of 'project grizzly' you have missed one of the all time greatest TV epics.

Chisato and I saw it originally a few years back in San Diego and we still talk about it. Watching him start out with a home made suit of armour and testing it's durability by having guys drive trucks at him was both mind blowing and as funny as hell.

Meet Troy James Hurtubise, a self-styled "close-quarter bear researcher," who's obsessed with going face-to-face with Canada's most deadly land mammal, the grizzly bear.
Troy is the creator of what he hopes is a "grizzly-proof" suit of armour -- an extraordinary fusion of high-tech materials and homespun ingenuity -- and of his own hybrid mythology that is part Hollywood, part Canadian shield. His quest takes audiences into a world both compelling and disturbing, full of contradiction, humour and fantastical vision.

http://www.nfb.ca/grizzly/index.html

You have to watch the film clip at his web site to get a feel about just how weird the whole thing is!

He looks like a member of Voltron.

Everybody knows bears can't fight well, and are easily distracted.


Bear Fight

There was no need for violence - surely he could've made like Mr Takahashi (Yeti hunter) and just taken some pictures and shaken hands with the bear ...

Taro Toporific wrote:

GomiGirl wrote:Was it a real bear or an Australian "Drop-Bear". I guess it all depends on the type of mushrooms he was picking!!!

The Great Australian Mystery - Drop Bears
Drop bears, as their name would suggest, are a mutant variety of Koala (which, of course, is not a bear at all) which live in the lower overhanging branches of trees, and will drop onto the unwary traveller passing below ...

I must run out and buy my Auroran Drop Bear repellant.

Tourists in Oz are often told that generous dolops of vegemite behind each ear are a well known repellant for Drop Bears.

It doesn't work for crocs, though


or small humans