Kids: If a bear is wearing a ranger hat, it's because he ate the ranger!

A darkly comic “public service announcement” in the voice of an adult addressing children, the line punctures the comforting, cartoonish image of friendly wildlife. By proposing a grotesque explanation for a bear in a ranger hat, Ferguson flips a familiar symbol of safety and authority into evidence of danger, using shock to make the underlying point: nature is not domesticated, and appearances can mislead. The humor depends on incongruity (a bear in uniform) and sudden reversal (the hat signifies predation), a style consistent with stand-up and late-night one-liners that mix innocence with macabre punchlines.