Why did the two little bear cubs cross the road?
Typically that type of question is followed by a punch line, but there’s no joke here. Instead, we’ve got a legitimate scenario where one can ask why two little cubs would be crossing a roadway, and the answer to that question becomes abundantly clear only a couple of seconds later.
Their mother is on the other side.
A mama bear’s love is unmatched. Good luck finding a bond or connection out in the wild that’s stronger than a mother bear’s dedication to her cubs. If you were only going to follow one rule out in nature, the big one to live by is to never get in between cubs and their mother bear.
It’s a momma bear’s duty to raise her young until they are able to fend for themselves out in nature. That process usually takes around one to two years, and obviously looks different from sow to sow. As you’ll see in this clip below, this particular female bear had a long way to go with these little ones.
And I’m sorry if you clicked on this story hoping for some wild animal drama. Fortunately, things stay pretty mundane in this video. There’s no attacking or charging to be seen, because this time around, the focus is instead on this mother’s caring, safety-first approach.
That being said… could she have waited and walked across the road with her babies? Yes, and that probably would have been safer. This mother bear opted to take the “lead by example” approach, and walked across this New Hampshire road first, then waited for her cubs to follow behind.
I’m not an expert on bear cubs, but I’d say this is close to top speed for these two little babies. Their heads are practically as big as their bodies, so if they did need to speed up, they could always just lean that head forward and let the rest of their extremities catch up with the momentum. Believe it or not, bear cubs are only about a half a pound when they’re born, and can’t even walk for quite a few weeks. These cubs here are probably around 10-14 weeks old, and they’ll quickly put on the weight, reaching anywhere between 50-100 pounds by their first birthday.
Eventually, the pair of tiny bears made it across the road, all while their mother kept a close eye from the other side. The mama bear was keeping a very close watch on the vehicle that this video was being recorded from, and you best believe she would have jumped into action if she felt like her cubs were threatened. However, the mother bear never had to switch gears into “protection mode,” and was able to patiently wait for her two babies to traverse the roadway, as the caption for the post explain:
“A mother bear waits as her two cubs cross the road to join her on the other side. Black bear cubs stay close to their mother for over a year, learning essential survival skills like foraging and climbing to avoid danger. This moment was captured in Warren, New Hampshire.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DG5xVDkOt2Y/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Love a good, wholesome bear cub video. Don’t you?
The only real concern that I have is with some of the comments below the video. Admittedly, the bear cubs are adorable. That led some people to say they would love to have the little guys as a pet, which is just an awful idea:
“If not pet, why pet looking?”
“Now I want a bear.”
“At first I thought someone was going to need to adopt those cute cubs. That could have gone very badly.”
That’s the most realistic and self-aware of all of the comments. And like that Instagram user said (and how I put it earlier), you NEVER want to get in between a mother bear and her cubs…
