Bears Maul And Kill Bear-Lover, Observe Irony
                                     by Kenton DeAngeli and Josh Righter

A Californian author and self-proclaimed "friend of bears," Timothy Treadwell, was recently killed and gnawed upon by one or more of his massive, hungry friends in the remote and exotic Kalfia Bay in Alaska, prompting those bears involved in the attack to consider the implicit irony of the situation.

The author of a book extolling the ability of massive and ferocious grizzly bears in northern Alaska to form meaningful and lifelong friendships, Treadwell routinely approached bears and sang to them in a high-pitched voice that he loved them, until he was brutally killed to provide for one or more of his friends a tasty mid-morning snack.

After the attack, the bears sat back and discussed the remarkable irony of the situation, according to reporters close to the kill site.

"You really couldn't ask for a better example of irony than this," marveled one bear. "Man proclaims love for bears, gets eaten by bears. Amazing."

"This kill definitely felt more meaningful than other human kills," said another bear. "I mean, the others were just kind of random, or at most, a territory invasion or something. But this guy was singing to us that he loved us. How could we not kill him?"

A third bear agreed, "I definitely feel intellectual about this whole thing."

Treadwell's untimely death does come as a surprise considering his confidence in the friendly nature of grizzly bears, but many of his human friends say it's a way of dying that he would've appreciated.

"Even though he probably never suspected he would never be killed by bears due to his constant promoting of their friendliness and tendency to not kill humans, Tim probably would've picked 'bear attack' as his number one way to die if you ever asked him," said close friend Jim Thorn.

"I'm sure as he was being eaten, his final thoughts were probably something like, 'You know, this is sort of nice,'" speculated neighbour Betsy Harlen.

Even so, most were admittedly surprised at Treadmill's demise.

"I just never in a million years would've thought grizzly bears -- animals engineered to be brutal killers with a reputation for being aggressive towards human invaders -- would attack Tim," said Thorn in puzzlement. "I mean, he liked to sing to them!"

"How an animal can attack somebody who declares his love for it is just beyond me," said Harlen with a sad frown. "It's things like this that really make me question God's presence in this world."

Investigators were reportedly considering attempting to apprehend the bears and place them on trial, but abandoned the idea when they realized that they were in danger of being mauled, as well.

"I read Tim's book," said one investigator, "and so I'm tempted to go on up there and ask them politely to come on down to the station with us, because he makes it sound like they will. But the fact that they brutally slaughtered him just made me sort of wary of the whole idea."

Scientists everywhere are scrambling to rewrite their literature on grizzly bears to reflect this new, unexpected development.

"We need to work hard to erase the image of your friendly, neighbourhood grizzly bear that we had prior to this attack," one scientist told us. "Based on everything we knew, it seemed correct, but we're now realizing it may have been all wrong."

Friendly anti-forest fire mascot Smokey the Bear will also be revised, as in his current state he furthers the false image of a lovable bear.

The new Smokey will feature razor sharp claws, crazy, murderous eyes, and the slogan, "If you start forest fires, I will tear out your jugular."

Editor's note: The situation described in this story actually happened. Read about it here: http://www.adn.com/front/story/4110831p-4127072c.html.

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