Thursday, August 26, 2010

Following in failure's footprints.

This is getting old.

sloth bear print

If you've followed E,W&W for a while you may recall a similar photo to the above appearing a while back. Its another bear print. This is from Sri Lankan Sloth Bear as opposed to North American Black Bear in the previous post although it seems when it comes to bears, species and locality are irrelevant: I don't see them.

To be fair sloth bears are far, far harder to see than black bears. They're a rare and nocturnal inhabitant of the dry forests so are near impossible to see in the day time. Interestingly they have a really bad reputation among the locals. They are nearly blind and due to the habitat, encounters with humans tend to be surprising and at close quarters; such encounters often result in a panicking bear lashing out with claws evolved to break open termite mounds.

So my hunt for my life bear continues...............

1 comment:

Amila Salgado said...

Now, that's a familiar foot print.
I have had no Sloth Bear this year, but then I didn't visit Yala in the best period for them from May-July.