Hi All,

I suppose that you all have seen the reports about Knut the Polar bear. He was a major draw at the zoo where he was kept. He died of some sort of brain problem.

He is going to be made into a full body mount apparently. His body parts will be used for specimens for scientific research.

We fly tiers need to step up to the plate to help with the scientific research.

I thought several of us might volunteer to tie some streamers using bits of spare polar bear hair. Ideas that come to mind include: 1. do investigations of how well a streamer works when tied of bear hair as opposed to the same streamer tied with bucktail, 2. get some really vintage bear hair, and compare the tying ease and effectiveness of the new vs the vintage hair, 3. tie a bunch of streamers, some very sparcely tied, some tied with a heavy wing, some with moderate amounts of winging, etc., and evaluate the effectiveness of the amount of hair in the wing.

The point is that if the bear mount is set up near the back wall of the display, he might have a lot of hide that faces the wall that can be used for tying, er....ah....well....I mean scientific testing.

I will be glad to be the first offer to do some testing. You may want to sign up also. We need to contact the zoo and offer our services. It may be an idea whos time has come....well....maybe.

Regards,

Gandolf