Due to Bear's ever busy schedule, feel free to post your questions here and they'll be passed on to Bear as often as possible. We'll publish his answers in the viewers Q&A section of the site, and I'll update once that's been done -
You've served the SAS, reached the summit of Mt. Everest, crossed the north Atlantic ocean, you've even hosted a dinner party at 24,500 feet off the ground. With that much and more, how do you stay grounded? What I mean to say, with such extra ordinary human accomplishments, I imagine that one might begin to see themselves as impervious to danger. How do you stay level?
I turely love the show. I've done a very good share of wandering in unknown areas and in the back country. I've learned most of my skills from my father and learned a few on my own (the hard way most often). I noticed on the show in the Sierras you find an overhang and build a fire for warmth. It wasn't shown or mentioned but shouldn't the fire have been set a short bit away from the opening of the overhang so as not to cause a temp change in the rocks? Couldn't direct heat possibly cause the rock to crack and become unstable? This was one of the things my father always stressed to avoid possible cavein or avalanch.
Originally posted by MvW_Mod_Melissa: Due to Bear's ever busy schedule, we're implementing a new 'Ask Bear' system that we're happy to present to you. Feel free to post your questions here. At the end of each month, a group of questions will be compiled into a poll, and you'll have the chance to vote on the Top 5 you'd like answered. The five questions with the most votes will be passed on to Bear, and we'll publish his answers in the viewers Q&A section of the site: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/manvswild/q-and-a/q-and-a.html
I've always been interested in the wild, and love your show. I've had a few questions, but the main question from me is: What is it like to do what you do?
I'm a huge fan of the show and would really like to get some advice. Your biograhy says that you served in the SAS and I was wondering when you were serving with them what type of workouts did you and the other members do, how long did they last for, and how often, meaning how many days a week did you do PT, and what type of exercises, if any did you refrain from doing and why did you choose not to do them?
Also my other question is if you were responsible for leading PT three times a week and each PT session lasted only an hour what type of workout would you put yourself and the other people that you were leading in PT through given the one hour time restraint for each session.
hey bear, in recent episodes i've noticed the pants that you are wearing look very fimilar, a paintball company makes pants exactly like those and i was wondering if indeed you wear paintball pants on your trip...
Loved the Namibia show tonight. Question: Was one of the bushman Sarel Bok? He was in A Far Off Place with Reese Witherspoon in 1993 as a guide through the Kalahari Desert and he looked like an older version of him. Would be interesting to know. Thanks so much!!
I am interested in the backpack you carry. No matter where it has been (water, mud...etc.), the things inside always stay dry and clean. Could you talk a little about your backpack and your suggestions on the selecting one?
Why do you feel the need to kill so many animals so brutally? I mean, it would make sense if you were REALLY out in the wild like survivor man (who while filming his own stuff, tries not to kill many animals, and when he does he does it in a way that doesn’t make him look like a big idiot) but isn’t it a little pointless when moments after the camera goes off, you head to your nice comfy trailer to eat your well cooked food? Your show is stupid because it isn’t real and the fact that, on the rare moments that I actually take a moment to watch your show, all I ever see you doing is killing animals for no reason, makes it that much more disgusting. You simply run around like you are hopped up on caffeine and on some secret mission, completely NOT like someone would if they were stranded in the wild. Lame. So why?
Why do you feel the need to kill so many animals so brutally? I mean, it would make sense if you were REALLY out in the wild like survivor man (who while filming his own stuff, tries not to kill many animals, and when he does he does it in a way that doesn’t make him look like a big idiot) but isn’t it a little pointless when moments after the camera goes off, you head to your nice comfy trailer to eat your well cooked food? Your show is stupid because it isn’t real and the fact that, on the rare moments that I actually take a moment to watch your show, all I ever see you doing is killing animals for no reason, makes it that much more disgusting. You simply run around like you are hopped up on caffeine and on some secret mission, completely NOT like someone would if they were stranded in the wild. Lame. So why?
Thanks
I'm going to answer that question by myself. Killing animals is a normal thing. Animals are a form of protein and you need protein when you are surviving. Survival is survival and you need food when you are out there. You need to put away all your morals and just do what you need to do to survive. I personally don't believe Bear goes back to his so-called "trailer" after every night but even if he did, this show is not a documentary of showing him how he survives, but a documentary of showing people how to survive. And in order to survive, you need meat. And most of the time, you have to kill in order to eat. And about the running arounding like he is on some sort of secret mission. Bear does that because he finds it fun and if you are having fun while you are in a survival situation, you are already surviving 75% correctly in my eyes. The other 25% is the food, water, shelter, and keeping your core temperature at 98.6.
By the way, I'm a survival expert myself and when I'm surviving I also climb, swim around and do everything I need to do to enjoy myself. I try to get progress done also while I'm doing it but whatever makes you smile is a good thing.
P.S. I am a vegetarian by the way, not for health, but for animal rights so that stuff about killing the animals is coming for a very strict vegetarian.
P.P.S. I do know that Bear went to a hotel or something along this lines but that doesn't mean he is a fake. Look around the forums and see hundreds of people's opinions and hopefully that will change your mind. But this isn't the place to discuss it.
What was the craziest thing that happened to you while filming the show? What has been your favorite thing to eat on the show? What has been your favorite location to film Man vs. Wild so far?
Thanks, hopefully you could do a show down here in Texas sometime.
Hi Bear, I have been watching your show since it started, and I usually really enjoy it. I am however, extremely disgusted by the way you constantly have to kill animals. I understand that in a survival situation you have to do, what you have do to live, but come on! The brutality you used when you smashed that poor monitors head into the tree made me sick! There are WAY more humane ways to do things like that. Could you tone down the violence just a little? Maybe, don't show the actual act of killing the animal? Other than that, keep up the good work!
Hi, Bear. I like these new shows that have a disclaimer before and during. A couple years ago a viewer admitted on the message board to feeding her 1 mo. old daughter distilled poop fluid from something she found on Kodiak Island, based on your drinking fluid from the squeezed elephant poop in Africa. Yowza!
My question is this: several times you've admitted on-air to having digestive upsets, whether vomiting or diarrhoea. Do you regularly get giardia or other wee beasties from drinking from the odd pool or stream? How about from the animals or insects you eat? In a real survival situation this could mean rapid dehydration. I lived in South Africa for a year. I know how awful it can be to have diarrhoea in the bush!
Hey Bear, I love the show as much as the next guy but I have to agree that killing that 3 foot lizard in the swamp last episode was a little much. Are some of these kills more for rateings than necessity?
Also Bird, Stop talking to people like they are idiots. We are all aware it is necessary to kill animals in a survival situation but Bear isn't really in a survival situation.
