Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I regret to inform you that people are still harassing wildlife out there. People being idiotic around wild animals is an epidemic of sorts. It seems as though every time I log in to any of my social media accounts, a video is popping up of someone getting dangerously close to a dangerous animal.
The National Park Service advises tourists to stay 25 yards away from animals that are deemed “non-violent,” like bison, elk, and other creatures that tend to be relatively docile. When it comes to bears, wolves, and other apex predators, the NPS warns park goers to keep a football-field-distance between them and the animals.
I feel as though I sound like a broken record saying that, because anytime one of these videos go viral, I include a variation of that paragraph above. I’m doing so in hopes that my words will reach one of the people that may not be informed on how to act around wild animals… but then again, I low-key do enjoy covering stupid people doing stupid things.
Which brings us to this ill-informed man in British Columbia (Canada) that, for some inexplicable reason, decided to treat a massive bear as if it were domesticated dog. In the clip, the 400-pound bear can be seen walking around a storefront as people that are way too close take videos and laugh (for some reason). Then one first-team, All-American dummy decided to take things a step further…
As the bear was facing away from him, the guy quickly walked right up to the wild animal (that could easily tear him apart) with his phone out, recording the bear from mere feet away. Why? Probably getting a good video for the Instagram story, am I right? He had to make sure that all of his followers knew he lacked even the slightest bit of common sense.
When he approached the bear, the sizable wild animal turned towards him and bluff charged. That prompted the man to first be surprised as could be, then crazily growl back at the irritated bear:
“Oh! Rawr!”
That’s such an insane thing to do… throwing out a “rawr” at a bear that could extinguish the life out of a human in seconds? Has this guy not seen The Revenant? Maybe not the best example since Leonardo DiCaprio’s character lived through that bear attack.
Fortunately, the guy and everyone else that was standing in close proximity to the bear ended up being okay. But this is just one of those situations that could have gone – and possibly should have gone – much worse. The Instagram account “Tourons of National Parks” captioned the video as:
“This bear got dangerously close to these skiers in British Columbia. One man seems unfazed by the apex-predator just inches away from him, and even growls back after it charges at him.”
Pretty wild, right?
If you thought so, you aren’t alone. There were plenty of people that came across the video online that were astounded by the stupidity and lack of respect (and fear) for the bear. They left comments below the post pointing out just how foolish the whole situation was:
“What is going on with people having no clue about the situation?”
“Make mauling great again.”
“People need to learn respect for wildlife and what they’re capable of and stop treating these situations like they’re funny.”
“Do people not know what bears are?”
“Give that bear space! Poor thing looks stressed!”
Don’t be this guy…
