Love to see a bear out in the wild making itself right at home.
When you are out in bear country, you have to be extra careful with things that you might otherwise be nonchalant about. If you aren’t used to locking your car, you really should when you visit a place where bears live. These tourists that visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (which is annually the most visited national park in the country) learned that the hard way.
It’s estimated that 340,000 bears live in the United States, and in certain parts of the country, residents have to always be on alert and keep an eye out for bears. Black bears make up most of that total number (around 300,000), and one place where you are almost guaranteed to see them is in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
In the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the tourist destination known as Gatlinburg. Those that have been before know that there’s no better place to go look at mountain, stay in a cabin, eat pancakes, and get drunk off of moonshine tastings. Former Gatlinburg visitors also know there’s a good chance that you’ll cross paths with a black bear while you are there.
Most of the time, you prefer to have an encounter with a black bear from a distance. You’d rather not watch a curious bear try to get into your crossover SUV, like these people did. This particular wild animal appeared to be “smarter than the average bear,” and it quickly started grabbing for the door handles of the vehicle. After some trial and error, the smaller (yet still intimidating) animal got the car open.
Bears tend to be pretty nosy creatures, and though they have been known to get violent when provoked (or if their cubs are messed with), they’re usually just trying to have a good time. And sometimes that means getting into a little trouble, in most cases because they are searching for food. That’s normally the main cause for any bear interacting with humans, and likely what was happening in this video.
And the reaction that one man near the car had was a textbook example of what not to do when in close proximity to a bear. He walked right towards big-pawed creature standing on its hind legs, and as you might imagine, the bear didn’t like that. So the wild animal reacted as it normally would when feeling threatened, and charged right at the man.
Fortunately, the bear quickly gave up on the chase… but not before one man (presumably a friend of the guy who walked towards the bear) went tumbling down a sharp incline as he tried to distance himself from the wild animal. It’s a chaotic video, and at the very least, it’s a reminder that you 1) should keep a safe distance from bears and 2) always lock your car while in bear country.
Check it out:
@lindseyooley33 🙈 #bear #Gatlinburg #family ♬ original sound – 🌼Lindsey•LaShea🌼
