“We knew that a changing climate can affect an animals behaviour, but we never thought something like this would happen,” said zoologist Dr. Ben Pamp.
“It’s well documented that relatively sudden changes in an animal’s surroundings can bring on changes in the behavioural traits of different species. It’s usually to do with say breeding cycles, diet, hibernation times etc. But we’ve never seen anything like this,” he continued, gesturing to the polar bear behind him which was seemingly trying to present a sports news segment on hurling.
This, and I don’t hesitate to use the phrase, ‘fucking apocalyptically confused’ polar bear, was first brought to the researchers’ attention some months ago after some locals noticed the changes to its behaviour. Rather than occupying itself with the sort of typical polar bear past-times – resembling angry snow; mauling seals to death etc.- they saw that it had started to construct what seemed like a rudimentary news desk out of the ice.
What’s more, as the researchers began to investigate, they noticed other unusual behaviours. “So that we can keep an eye on populations numbers, we have the majority of polar bears around here fitted with GPS trackers,” said Dr. Pamp, “and when we were warned about this one, we noticed some unusual readings. Using the GPS we saw that, astoundingly, it appeared that the bear was spending, sometimes up to six hours a day, tracing a pattern in the ice with its movement. It was, accurate to the yard, tracing the dimensions of a GAA pitch in the ice.”
As Dr. Pamp continued speaking the bear behind him had seemingly wrapped up whatever sports news segment it had thought it was presenting and was now practising soloing with the dismembered head of a walrus. After inquiring as to whether we were safe to be so close to such a dangerously deluded animal, Dr. Pamp informed me that as far as he knew we ought to be okay. However, he said that if it were mating season it would be a different story. “That thing in heat…”, Dr. Pamp shuddered, haunted by the ghost of some past trauma, “Well, let’s just say that a lot of our team are still in counselling after what they witnessed. That thing will pound anything with a pulse; until it no longer has a pulse.”
However, the most pressing issue they were trying to resolve was how on earth a wild polar bear in the Arctic even became aware of the existence of Marty Morrissey in the first place. And, what’s more how it then obtained, what appeared at a distance to be, some sort of shoddy toupee. “We think he made it out of the fur of a sea-lion. But we haven’t been able to get close enough to confirm that,” said Dr. Pamp.
Regardless of how it obtained such a shockingly low quality toupee, this is a worrying and entirely unpredicted by-product of global warming. We may never know just quite why, as temperatures around the world rise, this polar bear became convinced that it was Marty Morrissey. “What’s most worrying,” concluded Dr. Pamp, “Is that we don’t know if this is merely a once off.” If not it could spell disaster for polar bears and indeed for Marty Morrissey’s career, as one thing’s for sure, having seen that bear attempt to present a sports news segment, its clearly got talent.