Since Hercules arrived at Andy and Maggie Robin’s home in Sheriffmuir, near the town of Dunblane in central Scotland, the three have become inseparable.
They started the day by having breakfast together in the kitchen (coffee sweetened with condensed milk and sugar, eggs, sausages) and spent the rest of the day playing, training or simply keeping each other company.
But although they obviously behaved like a family, they were undoubtedly a very particular trio.
And Hercules – or Herc, to those we know – was not a human being, he was a bear.
Yes, one gray bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) that the couple adopted as a nine-month-old puppy, and that when it became an adult it exceeded 2.50 meters in height and weighed more than 190 kilos.
just like a son
Maggie was always interested in animals. Raised on a farm in Scotland, she says her first love was horses. As a child she learned to ride and won prizes in show jumping competitions.
So when her husband Andy – a charismatic lumberjack and wrestling champion who was more than 15 years older than her – proposed adopting a bear cub, she didn’t doubt it for a second.
“I remember the first time Andy said to me, ‘What would you say if I told you I was thinking about having a bear cub?’ What I never imagined was the life we would have, that this would become a magical relationship,” Maggie tells the BBC.
Andy had come up with the idea in Canada, when he was offered $1,000 to fight a brown bear nicknamed “Nasty Ted.” The hand-to-hand encounter with the animal had excited him to the point of wanting to have his own bear.
His family and friends believed – not without reason – that the idea was impractical, if not crazy. But Andy and Maggie started their project and found the puppy they dreamed of in a zoo in Scotland.
They made all the necessary preparations to accommodate the bear cub and after making a payment of US$67, on August 31, 1975, they formally adopted him.
They baptized him Hercules. And to his two brothers who were left with their mother at the Atlas and Samson zoo.
They had chosen Hercules because, compared to his two brothers, he was the calmest and most affectionate, and the one who showed the most attachment to his mother.
Still, he was so wild when he arrived that Maggie was only able to pet him after two months. For her, Herc technology was like a son.
“When they give you the chance, whether it’s a child or an animal, they are totally innocent. They have never been betrayed, no one has hurt them. It’s up to you to keep it that way.”
Adrift
Coexistence worked wonders. Herc worked with Andy in his wrestling shows and accompanied him in his other activities.
Period too habituated from the pub that Andy and Maggie ran. He made his way comfortably among the clientele and had even acquired a taste for alcohol. His favorite drink – the same as Andy’s – was a drink similar to a lot of lemonade with a side of beer.
The contrast between his imposing size and his sweet and harmless behavior had captured the hearts of children and adults in the local community, in which he became a celebrity. “Period is part of the social fabric of Dunblane,” says Maggie.
And, precisely because of his fame, Hercules was hired in the summer of 1980 to film a commercial for a well-known brand of toilet paper in the Western Hebrides.
Before filming began, Andy went swimming for a while with Herc in the cold waters of this group of Scottish islands.
Tied as always with a rope around their necks, they jumped into the water. But possibly due to the cold, the rope shrank, the knot slipped and Herc continued swimming without realizing that he had lost contact with his owner.
The incident quickly turned into a tragedy. Herc continued swimming until they lost sight of him.
“An empty fur coat”
It took 24 days to find it. It was a massive search operation by sky and land to which hundreds of volunteers joined.
The media closely followed the operation step by step, attentive to report any news that could give clues to Herc’s whereabouts.
When they finally caught sight of him, “Hercules looked like an empty fur coat,” Maggie recalls. “He was very bad, he was very very fragile.”
He had lost more than half his weight.
“The rest of the night and the next morning, the islanders, who mostly had cows, milked them and brought him more than 50 liters of milk. And that was what finally revived Hercules,” Maggie tells the BBC.
Herc was carefully transported to his home, and there he slowly recovered.
His fame grew exponentially after his unexpected adventure, and Herc became an international star.
Everyone wanted to be a part of Herc’s story. He traveled to the United States and Japan, among other destinations, rubbed shoulders with political and TV stars (Margaret Thatcher, Bob Hope, and others.), appeared on entertainment programs and even in a James Bond movie (“Octopussy”), alongside Robert Moore.
Disease
Around the year 2000, Herc’s health began to deteriorate. He suffered a wound to his back that left his hind legs immobilized.
With a lot of effort, Andy managed to rehabilitate him.
“Every day, I would make him swim in the swimming pool. And he would walk the length of the pool back and forth, back and forth until he wore out the soles of his shoes,” Maggie says.
It improved, it’s true. But over time it declined again.
They had found an abscess on his back. They couldn’t save him anymore. And, in February 2001, when he was about 25 years old, the darling of the family, Andy’s wrestling and wandering partner, died.
Andy passed away in 2019, aged 84.
The two are buried side by side in Usa, near the place where Herc was lost.
There is a plaque marking Andy’s resting place and a life-size sculpture where the remains of Hercules are.
“When I come here to visit, it puts a smile on my face. I think a lot. It’s a beautiful place to visit,” Maggie says.
“Andy’s bond with Hercules was extraordinary. If someone was destined to be a bear, it was Andy. And if someone was destined to be human, it was Herc.”
“Hercules defied all adversity and everything that was said. And he showed that with kindness and love you can achieve anything.”
*With information from the BBC’s Lives Much less Fashioned podcast. You can listen to it here.
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- “We bought a zoo and our lives were turned upside down.”
