Nation: Fair Play for Bears

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The rifles and shells were packed, the bourbon stashed in car trunks. But the game was off on its own trip. Two black bears were weaving along a road near the town of Florida in western Massachusetts when Conservation Officer William Kulish first spotted them. Next morning, he found the bears asleep near the Deerfield River; when he woke them, they responded with "a pair of silly grins."

The bears got up and "walked with a definite wobble." They had gorged themselves on apples that fermented in their stomachs into hard cider.

The state director of fisheries and game postponed the bear-hunting season for four days to let the bears sober up. He declined comment on a suggestion that only drunken hunters be allowed to hunt drunken bears.