Raising children comes with growing pains (in every sense of the phrase), and this mother bear learned that she’ll have to be pretty patient with her three adorable cubs.
Climbing a wall is a pretty mindless task for a full grown black bear, but doing it for the very first time as a small cub is a completely different story. She appears to have climbed the wall with ease and looked back surprised that her offspring had not found it as easy.
A passerby by the name of Jeremy Johnson is the one who captured the whole thing on camera, and he also provided a couple of moments of commentary along the way as well. Jeremy was driving down this Colorado Springs road when he saw the gathering of black bears up ahead and started recording, saying:
“So this is happening.”
A very realistic reaction to a wildlife encounter that you just don’t see everyday. I would definitely be a little distracted (and maybe find it hard to believe) if I saw a family of black bears traversing their way over a wall on my way to or from work.
Once the driver pulled up besides where the cubs were attempting to climb, he again acted naturally and said to the small, struggling bears:
“Sup little dudes.”
Keeping it casual, way to go Jeremy. The mother bear sits atop the wall, and even some parts of the video on top of the fence on top of the wall. Clearly climbing is no issue for her, but that skill must have not directly transferred down to her baby bears.
The cubs keep trying to climb and gain footing on the 5-foot-tall wall with no luck, as the mother bear peers over the edge and looks frustrated that they can’t figure it out. Just as it looks as if one of them is going to give up, the smaller bear ascending up the left side finally breaks through and finds a way.
An opening in the rock wall allows for the cub to get some leverage with one of its paws, allowing it to then grab the top of the wall and pull up the rest of the way. The mother bear looks over at the cub that has now joined her and then looks back down to the other two as if to say:
“Are you all going to do that too or what?”
Seeing their cub sibling make it to the top of the mountain (to them it probably felt like a mountain) gave them a newfound sense of inspiration, and the other two began to climb a little more successfully, just as the person videoing says:
“I kind of want to try and help them and pick them up, but it looks like…”
Thank God they ended up making it up on their own just as he was considering helping them, because this would have been an article titled “man mauled to death by bear” rather than the feel good, light-hearted one that it is.
As they finished up their ascent, Jeremy cheered them on:
“Come on little guys, you can do it. Climb! Climb! Woohoo! Good job momma bear.”
What did she do? You should’ve been congratulating the cubs for conquering the wall, the mother just stood there at the top seemingly upset that they weren’t up there with her already. Then again, a parent’s disappointment is a pretty successful motivator, so maybe the mother bear knew what she was doing.
Take a look:
