The Interesting Story Of Hercules The Bear

[AnonyJ]

Hercules was a grizzly bear born in 1975 who was raised from a cub in the wilds of Scotland by a show wrestler Andy Robin and his wife Maggie. He was a showbiz regular who made the news in 1980 when he took off whilst filming for an advert for toilet rolls in Benbecula on the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

He was on the lam for three weeks and the island-wide search involved the British army & Royal Navy until he was captured whilst swimming. Apparently he'd lost almost half his bodyweight as he didn't know how to, or chose not to, predate on the local livestock. He featured in a James Bond film and other projects before dying of old age at 25 years in 2001.

His remains are now interred on North Uist and there's a life-size carved wooden statue in his memory:

( Ivanbalich [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons )

 

[David Tame]

I may perhaps, perhaps not, have written about Hercules before. A friend of mine, Penelope Wright, knew Andy and "met" Hercules. Then, in the late 1980s I think, a bunch of at least several of us as friends decided to go to the cinema. There was a movie on then which was the only movie ever to have been filmed, at least till then, in the language of Lapland. That's all any of us consciously knew - nothing else. We got there early and sat talking. Penelope told me about Hercules and of how Andy once found his head inside Hercules' mouth while they played, but the bear never bit, so it was a testing moment. Then the movie began. And at some point a bear appeared and attacked people. Penelope went, "That's Hercules!" as apparently he was used in just about all movies needing a bear then.

..... What were the chances of that?

I also seem to recall that Hercules survived on the island while loose on a vegetarian diet. But then bears do eat vegetables or such as berries.