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The Problem Behind a Viral Video of a Persistent Baby Bear (theatlantic.com)
Ed Yong, writing for The Atlantic: For many people, a two-and-a-half-minute video of a baby brown bear trying to scale a snow-covered mountain was a life-affirming testament to the power of persistence. As it begins, the cub is standing with its mother on the side of a perilously steep ridge. The mother begins walking across, and despite slipping a few times on the loose snow, she soon reaches the top. Her cub, following tentatively after her, isn't so fortunate. It loses its footing and slides several feet. It pulls itself together and reattempts the ascent, before slipping again.
Finally, the cub nears the top. But as the footage zooms in to focus on the moment of reunion, the mother inexplicably swipes at the youngster with her paw, sending it hurtling downward again. It slides a long way, scrabbling for purchase and finding some just before it hits a patch of bare rock. Once again, it starts to climb, and after what seems like a nail-biting eternity for anyone watching, it reaches its mother. The two walk away.
The video was uploaded to the ViralHog YouTube channel on Friday, and after being shared on Twitter, it rapidly went viral. At the time of this writing, it has been watched 17 million times. The cub's exploits were equal parts gif, nature documentary, and motivational poster. It had all the elements of an incredible story: the most adorable of protagonists, rising and falling action (literally), and a happy ending. It was a tale of tenacity in the face of adversity, triumph against the odds. But when biologists started watching the video, they saw a very different story.
The video, they say, was clearly captured by a drone. And in it, they saw the work of an irresponsible drone operator who, in trying to film the bears, drove them into a dangerous situation that almost cost the cub its life. "I found it really hard to watch," says Sophie Gilbert, an ecologist at the University of Idaho who studies, among other things, how drones affect wildlife. "It showed a pretty stark lack of understanding from the drone operator of the effects that his actions were having on the bears." (It wasn't just scientists, either; several drone pilots were also dismayed by the footage.)
Finally, the cub nears the top. But as the footage zooms in to focus on the moment of reunion, the mother inexplicably swipes at the youngster with her paw, sending it hurtling downward again. It slides a long way, scrabbling for purchase and finding some just before it hits a patch of bare rock. Once again, it starts to climb, and after what seems like a nail-biting eternity for anyone watching, it reaches its mother. The two walk away.
The video was uploaded to the ViralHog YouTube channel on Friday, and after being shared on Twitter, it rapidly went viral. At the time of this writing, it has been watched 17 million times. The cub's exploits were equal parts gif, nature documentary, and motivational poster. It had all the elements of an incredible story: the most adorable of protagonists, rising and falling action (literally), and a happy ending. It was a tale of tenacity in the face of adversity, triumph against the odds. But when biologists started watching the video, they saw a very different story.
The video, they say, was clearly captured by a drone. And in it, they saw the work of an irresponsible drone operator who, in trying to film the bears, drove them into a dangerous situation that almost cost the cub its life. "I found it really hard to watch," says Sophie Gilbert, an ecologist at the University of Idaho who studies, among other things, how drones affect wildlife. "It showed a pretty stark lack of understanding from the drone operator of the effects that his actions were having on the bears." (It wasn't just scientists, either; several drone pilots were also dismayed by the footage.)
They need to get with the program. It wasn't a reaper drone just a shitty cam quadcopter. We are supposed to realise there's a whole other world out there maybe bears need to get with the program too, they're worse than sharks! Massive bear scared of a little shitty drone? A disgrace to the species.
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If people are killing themselves to get a selfie, imagine when their own life is not at stake. Humans suck.
It might mess up his hair
Was the drone running Linux?
Imagine going through life actively trying to find something to get angry and outraged about in everything you see. What a miserable existence that must be.
So viral I can't even see it.
I don't think that writer knows the meaning of the word.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Far better people see and understand wildlife and learn to appreciate them than not care at all.
Sometimes, I just don't understand people. Why would these stupid drone operators do something like this? What were they thinking?
Did they not know that bear season is open and that they should have just shot the bear? Idiots!
The point of this post is to illustrate how asinine the attempt to fan internet outrage over drones, in this case, truly is. People need to get some perspective. People need to stop whining about what MIGHT have happened to a bear and start worrying about what is and has happened to more important matters. How many PEOPLE died violent deaths in the same state as that bear in the duration of that video clip?
Now we have a video. Please say that me watching the video is problematic, I love how everything is problematic nowadays.
If I wanted to read shitty Twitter wars, I'd go to Twitter. Jesus, the whole press is infected with reporting on Tweets.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Put a gun on that drone - shoot the bear and anyone who doesn't like it
It's be great to have drones for all of the utility they could offer, but irresponsible operators keeps that from happening. The drone community is sabotaging itself.
They usually try to get shit going by provocation (or by making a mountain out of a molehill). What is different here? That just bears and not humans are put in peril?
The only information accompanying the video says that it was captured on June 19, 2018, in the Magadan region of Russia. No one knows who shot it, which drone was used, or how close it flew. But âoeit doesnâ(TM)t matter how far away it was, because I can tell from the bearsâ(TM) behavior that it was too close,â says Clayton Lamb of the University of Alberta, who studies grizzly bears in the Canadian Rockies and uses drones to map the area where they live.
They have no idea how close the drone was but they are somehow certain the bears behavior was affected by it? Based on what exactly? The POV from the drone indicates it was very far away, likely out of earshot and certainly out of view. If they could even hear it probably sounded like bees to them. At no point in the video do the bears even look at its direction.
One video isn't really a problem. Big deal, a bear gets scared and climbs a climb a mountain. We're part of nature, and we disturbed a bear that one time. Ho hum.
The problem would be more if world+dog tries to get the same shot. Given enough disturbance like this, it might have some negative impact. But getting upset over one video because a Bear got scared and might have injured itself is... stupid.
The drone-cretin should at the very least be heavily fined for this.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Too many whiny snowflakes on /. crying over a couple of bears and cursing humanity.
This story belongs in the pages of "Chicken Poop for the Soul"
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The mom was too stupid to care about her kid in light of her own life being threatened.
All I can say is thank god we are not animals and have developed enough understanding to be able to live beyond fight or flight.
This shows quite clearly what fear can do to a bear.
Plenty of people have shot at the top with a slingshot just cause it's either funny or they wanted to "make the bear strong".
I mean, what do you expect? People act that way to animals and people, it's called harassment.
I think it's strange to say inexperienced drone operator, when you can do the same thing by throwing a rock.
One of my neighbors uploaded a video they captured of porch pirates on Halloween stealing an amazon package; ViralHog stole it, then reported the *original* as a copyright violation
I only saw the thumbnails,
trying to entice me to watch
and I didn't
not even for a moment
consider watching it
.
Please support me for staying this Awesome !
Bingo. The difference when presented with the same evidence between what an amateur sees and what a professional sees. It just emphasis the story more in that people are ignorant about the consequences of their actions, and more importantly resistance about being educated about their ignorance. Now all we need to make the circle complete is blaming the animals for not recognizing our benign intentions. Now who are the stewards of the planet again? Certainly not the animals.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Have gnu, will travel.
One of the best options to cutting the noise of a drone down is building larger slower fans and installing them in a ducted fans.
But of course this situation is nothing really to do about the wildlife as much as it is a bunch of concern trolls trying to shit on the drone community because of a viral video.
Sure it's qualitative, but 9/10's my witness of drone operators is them behaving badly, irresponsibly, selfishly in some manner. Some recent ones:
-Park ranger at a beach had to tell a guy to put away his drone, the changing stalls were open air / roofless.
-Couple (not me) having a quiet, romantic moment on a lookout in Hawaii, buzzed by drone and clearly annoyed by it.
-Also in Hawaii, different location, drone flying up high while tour helicopter crossed ridge. I'm guessing it wasn't really as close to an accident as it looked to me, but certainly a danger.
-National park hiking trail, 2 miles from trailhead at a waterfall. Again, a quiet contemplative place...nope bzzz of drone.
-Above kids playground...wtf?
Short story, amateur operators suck
These days, most people trying to document and shoot on film try to be careful that their very presence does not alter the behavior of those they study. This was not the case of the drone operator, whose work affected the behavior of the bears. This has been a common problem through nature documentaries through the years. Some of our misconception of lemmings, that they commit mass suicide, was propagated by producers of a 1950s Disney documentary who brought the lemmings to the edge of a cliff and pushed them off. You're not really getting realistic behavior when you stage the behavior you think should be happening (lemmings do jump into the sea when their populations grow too large, but it's not suicide, it's to swim to the other side of a channel to settle on land there).
Not bears.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
I watched the video- didn't see the bears even acknowledge the drone. I don't think it was their motivation for climbing a mountain. The truth is wildlife doesn't fear a buzzing noise 100 feet in the sky. It's not a threat to them unless it gets close and this did not. Its hunters with rifles, deforestation, and global warming that threaten wildlife. This story is complete trash based on conjecture. There is no evidence that a drone spooks wildlife and suggestions that it does are why responsible drone operators can't find any scenic location to take photos. Drones are illegal to fly in all national parks and many state parks, yet in most of them you can carry a firearm and many have firing range and hunting permits.
Better off chasing the bears away with a drone than you getting chased by the bears. Political correctness says you have to die for their religion.