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Student’s photo of bear falling from tree goes viral

avatar by Published Apr. 27, 2012 12:43 pm Updated May 1, 2012 4:44 pm

CU Independent | Westword
Andy Duann’s picture in the CU Independent of a tranquilized bear falling from a tree is the sort of thing that makes you feel bad for ever saying anything bad about the Internet. The bear hangs in midair above a mat in Duann’s shot, as if it had slightly miscalculated before popping into our dimension.

Update: Duann is considering legal action against the school for distributing the photo without compensating him

The picture was published Thursday in a report about how the bear wandered onto campus and was coaxed out of a tree by way of a tranquilizer. Gil Asakawa, who advises the Independent (the student publication of the University of Colorado Boulder), told Denver Westword the photo had received more than 10,000 page views by 5 p.m. Mountain Time Thursday and “eventually crashed the Independent’s site.” That’s more than twice the traffic generated by the paper’s 4/20 coverage, which has its own tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

And now it’s a meme! Allen Klosowski sends a couple groovy remixes: This animated one, and this one, which combines the bear with a previous CU meme, the “totally psyched dive bar girl.” There is also a pretty great video:

The bear is resting comfortably.

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  • Anonymous

    Andrew, i coined a new word the other for these kinds of things and already my coinage is going ”gliral” via FB and Twitter and my own blog. Gliral is a portmanteau word that combines, you guessed it, going global and going viral into one combo word, going gliral, or just it went gliral. Soon to be entered into the hallowed halls of the Urban Dictionary by yours truly.

  • Anonymous

    Slow news day.

    Bears coming out of hibernation wander into populated areas all of the time, and also any other time they find themselves hungry.When sedated, they tend to fall out of trees most of the time, but have been known to hang on limbs which requires further rescue.

    A fast shutter speed and a motor-drive in daylight should typically render the same results from a decent camera. They (digital cameras) are today almost idiot proof, and capturing images of moving objects is something that they do well – Just push the button and see!

  • http://www.poynter.org Poynter

    Well, actually, the student who took it believes he holds the copyright and that the school should not have sold it without compensating him. The Colorado Daily and Denver Post paid, but others were told they could use it with credit. He’s looking at taking legal action. Here’s the story: http://journ.us/JLrCnh –Julie Moos, Director of Poynter Online

  • http://twitter.com/GlennF Glenn Fleishman

    Worth noting is whether reputable media outlets obtained license permission or paid fees to Daily Camera.

  • Anonymous

    When did this happen? A very similar photo was widely circulated almost two years ago.

  • Anonymous

    a frigging bear falling out of a tree is worthy of poynter’s frigging attention? huh?

  • Anonymous

    a frigging bear falling out of a tree is worthy of poynter’s frigging attention? huh?

  • http://thebigklosowski.com Allen Klosowski