A fed bear, as they soon, will soon be a dead bear. NPS photo by Jeffrey Brooker
Travel to just about any park with black bears and you'll either be handed information or see signs clearly detailing how to protect yourself and your belongings in bear country. While the accompanying video of a bear breaking into a car at Great Smoky Mountains National Park is nine years old, it could have been taken yesterday.
Bears are uncanny at sniffing out the tiniest morsel of food, and your car is no match for their muscles. There are many, many examples of bear-inflicted damages to cars in national parks. At Yosemite National Park, for instance, officials keep annual tallies of auto damage inflicted by bears.
There actually are two "don'ts" to be learned from this video. The first is not to store food in your rig. After watching the video, can you guess what the second is?
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Comments
The people that stood around and watched this bear break into the car were totally irresponsible. Why didn’t they chase the bear off and call the Park Service? Not only was this car damaged, but that bear may have caused trouble for other cars, campers or, possibly even acted aggressively towards some hikers. It would not surprise me if the bear had to be destroyed because it was, or became, a problem bear.
No doubt the car owner made a huge mistake by keeping food in a car with its windows partially open. However, those people that stood around and watched the bear taught it not to fear humans. There in lies the problem.
Jeff
www.HikingintheSmokys.com
I don't know that these folks are all that wrong. Far be it from me to get in between a large, hungry bear and it's food. Sure, they should've contacted SOMEbody, but chase it away? Not me! What's to stop him from charging you? Some of these folks really took their life in their hands being so close in the first place.
I agree with Jeff but would add that stupidity of the people in the parking lot is mind boggling! The only sane comment was someone yelling out that someone should beep there horn but these poor excuses for adults would rather have a photo op,put themselves(with children) at risk and unfortunately contribute to the eventual killing of the animal. I wonder if they saw a bunch of people trashing the car would they have done anything? It's a wonder the world is such a mess when people can't think about right and wrong. The guy who Filmed this should be fined as aiding the bear in the cars destruction!
Why should the guy videotaping be fined? I'm the one who videotaped this while vacationing in the Smokys. This is a documantation of what happenned. Animals are unpredictable. Its not like I helped the bear break into the car or the bear was acting up for the camera. There were many people standing close by, and startling the bear may have been the worse thing to do. I'm just glad nobody was hurt. I was nervous about being so close to the bear but their were a buffer of bystanders between me and the bear. I know I could out run the bystanders. The rangers ended up moving the bear far away from people. Hope you enjoyed the video.
I grew up in the Carolinas and was a frequent visitor to Great Smoky Mtns NP and the surrounding national forests. Things may be different today, but the Forest Service and NPS did a pretty poor job educating visitors about the potential for bear encounters and their consequences. Bears were never a consideration when I went camping and backpacking in eastern forests. I was pleased to see user-friendly bear cables in Great Smoky's backcountry campsites when I visited a year ago, which is more than I can say for similar campsites in some Western parks frequented by bears. But as recently as seven years ago, back east, "bear protocol" simply wasn't part of our lexicon.
I agree that the idiots watching this happen should have at least honked their horns to try to scare the bear away. But they only thought of the photo op and did not think of the safety of the bear, themselves and other visitors to come !
As far as calling a ranger, there is no cell service in most of the Great Smoky Mtn NP and unfortunately you can spend most of the day there and never see a ranger ! Budget custs once again surface their ugly face Way too many visitors have absolutely no common sense and the wildlife always suffer.
I have to say that I saw a lot of candidates for the Darwin award! Did not one of those folks think this was not for their entertainment and that bear was a wild animal? Many of them were 'lucky' the bear didn't realize they were meat in sneakers.
You hit the nail on the head, Kim. Not only shouldn't you store food in your rig in bear country, but you certainly shouldn't go running up to a bear for a photo op, unless you want to be in it when the bruin turns on you.
And, of course, the others watching this show should have, as others have pointed out, tried to drive off the bear in some fashion.
Where does one should store his food on a camping trip, while stopping in a day use area, if not in the car? In this case the driver left his side window open enough for the bear to get a grip. That was his mistake. But having food in the car is not a fault in itself.
But the stupidity of all those people still buffles me. They aproach a bear to a few yards (in Yellowstone there is a 100 yards rule), they get between a bear and his retreat route. In the early stages it might have been smat to scare him away. But that wasn't an option anymore once he was in the car and got the food.
So the first lesson, honestly, is not too obvious to visitors who haven't seen this video. Who'd think a black bear could do this to a car? I don't begrudge the owners of that car, they made an uninformed mistake, and that's that. Live and learn, and people who see this should learn.
But the folks just standing around while it happened, then getting close to the bear when it had food. How selfish and idiotic! I'd have bought that bear a cheeseburger if he chased down that woman in pink ...
There's stupidity through ignorance, and then there's just plain assininity.
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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com
Whoever left the car was a jackarse. One should know you do not leave uncovered food out; and secondly, you should not have left the window cracked to make it easier for the critters. That food should have been kept in proper storage containers to help keep the smell down and the windows should have been up.
As for all the people standing around, that was really dumb and a huge risk to them and their loved ones. The general public is just plain ignorant....
I think that one they shouldn't have been standing around watching a bear maul a car, Two they shouldn't decide to videotape it as Vince said, and Three who would stand around and look at a bear when it can attack and kill a bunch of people before someone could stop it! What has the world come to?!
CJ
My dad was a ranger and we spent a lot time in the GSMNP when he was off duty as well. He kept his ranger hat in the car at all times and when came upon a bear that needed to be run off, he would just hold the hat behind his back, walk up to the bear and then put the hat on.
The bears would take off like a rocket when they saw the ranger hat. They may be ornery, but they know authority when they see it.