Polar Bear Flip-Flop: People Hated, Then Loved These Photos. What Changed?
This couldn't be.
A 1,200 pound male polar bear (especially when it's autumn and he hasn't eaten for four months) doesn't make play-dates with an animal from another species. He doesn't arrive every afternoon to cuddle, nuzzle, hug and roll around with a dog. Brian Ladoon claimed it was happening, but Norbert Rosing thought Brian was smoking something. He wanted to see for himself.
Rosing was (and is) a famous nature photographer, who for a time specialized in polar bears . Back in 1991, Brian Ladoon owned a bunch of huskies and kept them loosely chained behind his house in Churchill, Manitoba. In the fall, hundreds of polar bears arrived in and around Churchill to wait for ice to form on nearby Hudson Bay. When it got cold enough, they'd walk, sometimes right through town, jump on the ice and sail out, looking for seals and fish to eat. On an autumn afternoon, Rosing settled down at Brian's house and waited for the bear he thought would never come."
But it came. Exactly as Brian had promised. In the video below, you can see Norbert's photos and hear them described by Stuart Brown, who proudly put them in a 1994 National Geographic article called "Animals at Play." You'd think these shots would have been a huge success. After all, just look at them ...
In fact, when these pictures were published, people hated them. Hated them. In his new book, Wild Ones , Jon Mooallem says photographer Rosing "was besieged by angry faxes and phone calls," from people who thought the photos couldn't be real, that the dog was probably put in the bear's path, "chained up as bait for the white monster." This wasn't play. This wasn't innocent. This was the prelude to a kill "a sinister trap." The bear, they said, was about to spring and bite the dog; when the pictures stopped, the bear pounced. The dog, they imagined, was probably terrified. No one wanted to look at these photos, Rosing told Jon. "People just couldn't believe it," so he didn't try to sell them. He just stashed them away.
READ MORE (Video Too!) ........
So.... Any guesses as to what changed peoples attitudes from hate to love?
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No, really. I want you to guess at what caused the peoples reactions to these photos. There is a theory as to why this is, but what do you think?
Dog lovers gone berserk would be my guess ...
My only question... Who uses a fax machine anymore?
That was the first time the public saw these pictures
It does sound better than being besieged by angry tweets though...
Close, but the dog lovers were why the photographer saw so much vitriol tossed in his direction.
Well, the archetype when he first released the pics was of a wild beast.... How did that change?
Media coverage, huh? Well, I will kind of buy that. Things changed for the polar bear when peoples perception of the bears changed. I wonder what else has the capability of changing? Could we change peoples perceptions of politicians?