From the Wikipedia: Hibernation

I had been led to believe that hibernation referred to the period when an animal basically shut off for winter, but this is apparently not the case. The Wikipedia page for hibernation completely sucks and needs to be updated to meet Wikipedia standards, but according to other Wikipedia pages, hibernating animals actually wake up during hibernation to eat and go to the bathroom, although they are animals and so obviously do not have bathrooms.

Basically, hibernators are just homebodies, the bloggers of the animal kingdom. The whole concept is overblown and overrated.

Meanwhile, bears are apparently not hibernators in the technical sense of the term, but instead enjoy something called “winter dormancy” during which they do not eat, drink, urinate or defecate.

So in other words, bears do exactly what I thought was hibernating, only it is not called hibernating. Whatever. Just semantics imposed upon us by some stuffed-shirt scientists, and bears continue to be way, way more awesome than scientists.

Sorry, scientists. Come back when you’re bears.

The silliest part of all this is that someone actually thought I went to the Wikipedia page for hibernation to learn about ground squirrels or mouse lemurs or any of the host of other boring animals that actually hibernate. Make no mistake, Wikipedia: I’m here for the bears. So let’s try this again:

From the Wikipedia: Winter Dormancy

I should first warn you that from the link above, if you scroll up just a tiny bit, there is a picture of bears having sex that could be NSFW, especially if you work with lascivious bears.

Bears have inspired many interesting and exciting Wikipedia pages. There’s this this list of famous fictional bears, this list of famous actual bears, and this list of bears. There are Wikipedia pages for Teddy Bears and Wikipedia pages for completely terrifying bears, but sadly, there is no dedicated Wikipedia page for the bear’s whole winter-dormancy thing, which is a shame because it’s downright fascinating.

According to non-Wikipedia Internet research, the American black bear can go 100 days without eating or drinking. 100 days. That’s nuts. Our pathetic human bodies would be dead in four.

November comes, and we have to keep finding food and maintaining our health as best we can through the cold-weather months. Not bears. Bears are just like, “You know what? I’m gonna go chill out in this cave a while. I’ll probably be up in time for the Super Bowl but TiVo it for me, just in case.”

You want to take a glass of water with you, bear?

“Nah, I’m good.”

Apparently one of the main reasons a bear’s winter dormancy differs from hibernation is that a bear can actually be roused from its slumber relatively easily, compared to those ground squirrels and mouse lemurs and all the lame, true hibernators.

But “relatively easily” just means that if you find a hibernating bear and poke at it for a while, it will eventually wake up and maul you. And if that happens, you know, you broke rule No. 1: Don’t f#@! with bears.

According to this article, German scientists are working on unlocking the secret to human hibernation. I’m down. If you timed it right, you could basically knock off after the World Series and wake up right before pitchers and catchers, probably with just enough time to figure out whatever roster moves your team made that offseason (oh, Omar, what’d you do!?). I realize you’d miss Christmas and the Super Bowl and the bulk of the college basketball season, but it’d also probably be a great way to lose weight.