An excellent article, Melissa. Many thanks for writing it. Unfortunately most people grow up with a Disney notion of reality and are insufficiently curious to seek out more accurate information.

Many years ago I was camping in the wilderness with my Ukrainian then-wife; at 02.30 I woke to the sound of snuffling and felt the ground vibrate slightly. Realizing it was a bear, I reached for my deterrent and readied myself, just in case. My wife woke and asked what on earth I was doing. When I explained that we were being investigated by a bear, she laughed - from the Russian cartoons she'd grown up on in Ukraine she knew bears were large fluffy harmless creatures that sat around in meadows all day playing with flowers and gazing at pretty butterflies.

I tried to explain that in reality they are 300kg predators with bone-crushing jaws and paws so powerful they can tear your head off. It was very difficult for her to process this information until she saw with her own eyes the size of the animal.

But her parents, when she recounted the story to them over the phone a few days later, laughed uproariously and shook their heads at the tragedy of how she'd married a man so fearful and cowardly that he'd be cautious about something as totally harmless as a fully-grown male brown bear.