THE INTERNET — Someone who has posted a fake warning of polar bears in Michigan doesn’t know their geography and doesn’t know their polar bears.
The debunking web site Snopes posted on Monday this bogus “warning” from the Michigan Department of Transportation making the rounds on Facebook:
There are no such warnings from the Michigan DNR. But you can go to the department’s web site to reserve camp sites, learn rules about ice shanties, even learn about public land for sale.
Meanwhile, Snopes pointed out two key things about this latest Internet hoax:
- Polar bears only live in the Arctic and never travel as far south as Michigan.
- Only dumb polar bears would walk across Lake Erie to get to Michigan from Canada, since only a small portion of Michigan shore is on Lake Erie. Any self-respecting polar bear would cross Lake Superior or Lake Huron to get to our lower peninsula.
Or they might commandeer a vehicle, pay the fare, and take the Mackinac Bridge.
