Native Wisdom

Crushed walruses are always such a nuisance:

The shores of Siberia's Chukchi Peninsula have been littered with the carcasses of young walruses.

Warmer winters have meant less ice, which in turn has kept walruses on the beach longer through the summer and fall.

Stampedes are common, often resulting in crushed babies.

That brings the scavengers: polar bears. They often come close to villages, and last year killed two people.

To help handle the bears, Siberians have reached out for some native Alaskan Inuit wisdom.

Charlie Johnson, a 68-year-old Inuit from Nome, answered the call. He spent three weeks last spring on an international mission to help scare off the bears.

"You confront them with a stick, so the bear thinks it is a tusk,"

Of course, only an Inuit can do this properly. Then they start talking to them... probably in a special Inuit Polar Bear language. And the second technique?

... firing a blank shotgun shell at their faces.

Via Tim Blair