We’ve never needed Stephen Colbert more than right now because there’s a major ThreatDown out of Twin Cities this week. I think he’d be forced to reinstate his feud with bears if he heard about this terrifying incident, in which a Grizzly bear shattered a glass partition at the Minnesota Zoo by throwing a rock at it, repeatedly.
Repeatedly. As in, this bear knew what the hell it was doing.
This all went down shortly after the zoo opened at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, according to a witness Robin Ficker, who was visiting from Maryland. Ficker told MPR News:
“The three bears, they were cavorting in the pool and wrestling and fighting,” Ficker said, “and then all of the sudden one of these huge half ton bears picked up a very large rock — I would say it was at least 50 pounds — and did a chest pass, just like Wes Unseld used to to do, right into the glass.”
“The bear, I would say, was about three feet from the glass. It was just a short distance. But it was a very strong bear and a very large rock. And the first time he threw it, it cracked. And then he kept throwing it. I thought those bears are coming out of here,” Ficker said.
As harrowing as that statement sounds, the bear actually only broke one out of five layers of glass in the protective barrier. Animal Collection Manager Tony Fisher also gave a statement:
“You know, they just like destroying things,” he said of the bears. “They’re always busy on our exhibit doing something, digging. We have trout in our pool for them to fish for, and that keeps them busy for quite a while, fishing for trout. But this morning he got a hold of a rock, which was not good.”
If a bear getting its paws on a 50 pound rock is “not good,” I’d like to know what constitutes as “really, really bad” from the Minnesota zookeepers. A bear getting its paws on a rocket launcher? At any rate, between this and that Silverback Gorilla smashing through glass at the Omaha Zoo with its bare hands, I think I’m cool never stepping foot in a zoo ever again.