2007.11.28
Bears in unlikely places
You've seen the video, the photographs: bear runs through downtown street, bear wanders into hospital, bear eats out of backyard birdfeeder.
It's can't miss stuff for newspapers and TV news. We're suckers for these things.
And here we go again. Now in the DataSphere, a map of sightings of black bears in interesting places around the Roanoke and New River valleys, with pictures and video in some instances.
There aren't a lot there yet, and that's where you come in, gentle reader. Email me with your sightings, friends. Send the date, time, location and a description of the bear and what it did, and don't forget the pics and vids if you got 'em. I'll stick 'em on the map and we'll all have more fun than a bear dosed up on ketamine.
As an aside, here's how this map "happened." A while back, the DataSphere was featured in a story on a prominent online journalism trade magazine site, called Poynter Online. Interviewing our editor, Carole Tarrant, the author asked what was next in the DataSphere. Carole replied, as a joke, that we'd be mapping sightings of black bears. The author took her seriously, and told the world that yours truly would be mapping black bear sightings.
Right away, we started seeing hits on the site from people doing Google searches for black bear sightings in Roanoke.
Well, we can't let the people down, now can we?
