Vistas & Byways Fall 2015

  • Welcome
  • Focus
  • Table of Contents
    • Fiction >
      • State Birds of the South
      • Two Characters in Search of an Exit
      • Selling Dreams
      • Pacific Standard Time
      • Sorrow’s Memory Is Sorrow Still
    • Nonfiction >
      • I Slept through 9-11
      • Passages
      • Detroit Welcome
      • On the Road
      • It's Been Forty Years
      • El Batey
      • Over the Rainbow
      • Motherhood
      • Not My War
      • Hidden Child
      • Nocturne
    • Poetry >
      • Death Gets a Makeover
      • Arachnophobia
      • Love Letter to a Poetess
      • Marilyn Monroe Syndrome
      • Or Maybe . . .
      • Dust to Dust
      • Morning Meditation
      • Next
      • Someone
      • A Dead Husband
      • Remembrances of the Second War
      • Lula Nunn’s Last Breath
      • White Hand Waving
      • Evening in Paris/Home in LA
    • Bay Area Stew >
      • Behind the Green Door
      • The Real San Francisco
      • Top Dog
      • At Home with the Homeless
      • Seeing Pacifica Beach
    • Inside OLLI >
      • An Interview with Sarah Broderick, Instructor
      • Star
      • Polar Bear Sighted on Golden Gate Bridge
      • Sister Theresa and the Evil Patrol
      • Wolfgang
      • The Making of a Flarf Poem
      • Ruminations on Rutabagas
    • V&B Forum
  • Contributors
  • Submissions
  • About Us
  • Staff and Contacts
  • LATEST V&B ISSUE
  • Welcome
  • Focus
  • Table of Contents
    • Fiction >
      • State Birds of the South
      • Two Characters in Search of an Exit
      • Selling Dreams
      • Pacific Standard Time
      • Sorrow’s Memory Is Sorrow Still
    • Nonfiction >
      • I Slept through 9-11
      • Passages
      • Detroit Welcome
      • On the Road
      • It's Been Forty Years
      • El Batey
      • Over the Rainbow
      • Motherhood
      • Not My War
      • Hidden Child
      • Nocturne
    • Poetry >
      • Death Gets a Makeover
      • Arachnophobia
      • Love Letter to a Poetess
      • Marilyn Monroe Syndrome
      • Or Maybe . . .
      • Dust to Dust
      • Morning Meditation
      • Next
      • Someone
      • A Dead Husband
      • Remembrances of the Second War
      • Lula Nunn’s Last Breath
      • White Hand Waving
      • Evening in Paris/Home in LA
    • Bay Area Stew >
      • Behind the Green Door
      • The Real San Francisco
      • Top Dog
      • At Home with the Homeless
      • Seeing Pacifica Beach
    • Inside OLLI >
      • An Interview with Sarah Broderick, Instructor
      • Star
      • Polar Bear Sighted on Golden Gate Bridge
      • Sister Theresa and the Evil Patrol
      • Wolfgang
      • The Making of a Flarf Poem
      • Ruminations on Rutabagas
    • V&B Forum
  • Contributors
  • Submissions
  • About Us
  • Staff and Contacts
  • LATEST V&B ISSUE

Polar Bear Sighted on Golden Gate Bridge
by Jane Hudson


Tim Woods, a late-night commuter from Marin County, reported seeing a polar bear running across the Golden Gate Bridge as he was driving home from San Francisco early Tuesday morning.  “I nearly ran into this huge creature galumphing toward my car,” he said.  “Of course, seeing a polar bear on the Bridge was totally unexpected, and I was really shook up for hours after the encounter.”  

Local authorities have been out in force since the sighting searching for the bear, but so far without success.  They’ve been patrolling Ocean Beach and the Embarcadero because they believe it likely the creature headed for the shore when it reached the City.  They have cordoned off those areas and warned residents to stay away from any ocean- or bay-side land.

Wildlife experts and climatologists at UC Berkeley speculate that, because of the loss of their usual icy habitat in the far north, polar bears are now ranging into more southerly lands in search of food.  Over the past two years, these bears have been sighted in British Columbia and Washington state, far south of their Arctic home.  Scientists have further speculated that, due to accelerated climate change/global warming caused by use of fossil fuels, evolutionary processes have also accelerated, allowing some cold weather species to adapt quickly to warming conditions.  

Can Bay Area residents expect to see more polar bears migrating into the area?  The experts say they’re taking “a wait-and-see approach,” although “it’s looking more and more likely,” they add. 

Jim Smoot, prominent local climate-change denier, called the supposed sighting “nothing but a bunch of bunk.”

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