At the beginning of the video, a black bear casually walks up the driveway as if it had done it thousands of times before. The family who got the biggest surprise (literally!) is still in their car, sounding panicked but mostly thrilled. You can hear the mother spewing curses, but you can also sense amusement in her voice. “We’re gonna need this video for our homeowners’ insurance,” she comically adds while the bear sniffs the garage door to see whether anyone is home. As if on cue, the family shrieks when the bear lifts the barrier between him and his feast of garbage. The mother attempts to scare the bear away while her child laughs heartily, unconscious of the risk they are in. The bear scans his surroundings to pinpoint the source of the commotion. The child suggests hitting the bear, but thankfully, the mother objects by requesting that the police be called. Linking human actions to a bear should be reserved for comedies, yet the scene begins to feel like anyone could relate to the hungry bear. As the mother worries about the children inside the house, the cuddly bear bends over (buttocks up in the air). It scratches the bottom of the garage door, and within seconds, it finally opens! The bear then expertly takes out the trash using its mouth, as if it’s just taking a box of pizza out of the refrigerator! Unsure what to do, the family honked the car, but the bear remained unfazed. As the family chuckles in the background, the bear rummages among the trash, perhaps looking for something edible. They kept honking at the bear, which the latter ignored until they finally decided to just contact the cops.
Is It Safe to Feed Bears?
A single bite of human food or trash is all it takes for a wild bear to become food-conditioned. These are not “problem” bears; rather, they are the product of incorrectly stored food. Bears who seek human food still know how to hunt naturally; human food just gives more energy than their normal meals, allowing them to spend less time foraging and gain greater weight when eating human food. Unfortunately, bears that eat human food may lose their innate fear of humans and become violent in their aim to get human food over time, posing a concern to public safety. When this occurs, the bear pays the ultimate price — death. The bear is killed. Human food left at campgrounds, on picnic tables, offered from an outstretched hand, or in litter attracts black bears, raccoons, coyotes, squirrels, crows, and other wildlife. Don’t feed wild animals! Several issues arise when animals are fed or given access to human food.
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