And the award for dumbest group of tourists goes to…
Some people are really just asking for it, and I mean that in the most respectful way possible. I’m not sure what has to happen internally for someone to think hand feeding a black bear is a good idea, but I guess I’d have to ask these guys.
Smoky Mountain National Park visitors were staying in a cabin up in the mountains in 2021 and made the ill-informed decision to approach a black bear. NPS guidelines, as well as basic common sense, advise tourists to stay 100 yards away from bears, and experts basically scream to not feed wild animals.
The guys in this video nonchalantly went against both of those rules, and ended up getting charged by a black bear because of it. That didn’t stop them from still being proud (for some inexplicable reason) of what they did, and getting video evidence of their stupidity posted with this first-person recollection of the event:
“Some friends and I were hanging out at the top of the Smokies Mountains at our cabin. I heard footsteps behind me and the bear was about 10 feet from me. I started recording and feeding the bear some food.
My friend Nick grabbed a biscuit and I told him to hand feed the bear, surprisingly the bear took the biscuit like a dog, then shortly after the video ended, I got charged by the bear. Luckily, nobody was hurt.”
So…they shouldn’t be able to ever step foot in another national park ever again, right?
Saying “luckily, no one was hurt” is an understatement, in my humble opinion. The better way to say that last sentence would have been something like this:
“Despite our senseless, foolish, and just-plain-dumb decision to hand feed a black bear, the Good Lord, for some reason that cannot be explained, protected us from being mauled by a vicious apex predator.”
A little wordy, I know, but I think it more accurately covers the situation. This video is an example of what not to do, and I can’t stress that enough. Feeding wild animals can make them more dangerous, and more apt to approach humans. The act of hand-feeding this black bear a biscuit not only put the guys in this video in danger, it also puts others that live in that area at risk.
And you might be asking “Well why’d you write about this if you think it’s so bad?” If you happen to be thinking that, I’d answer by saying that sometimes stupidity deserves to be put on a pedestal, that way people can witness it and vow to never be as stupid.
You can take a look at the asinine footage below:
