I mean, it’s a hungry cub, but oh boy did they got lucky. The bear even sniffs at boy’s head. Father is happily filming the whole scene.
This happened a few days ago at Chipinque park in Monterrey Mexico.
Its a black bear, aren’t these the ones you can scare off pretty easily and are quite docile?
Black and white? Don’t fight. Grey? Stay away. Green? Remain unseen. Plaid? That’s real bad. Red? That’s just Fred. Clear? Oh dear… Orange? Make some…more…whinge?
Yes, black bears are the more docile compared to grizzlies. You are supposed to try to scare them off if you aren’t able to avoid them.
This one looks young enough that it’s 50/50 on whether mom is near by though. They should have gotten up and left while it was distracted by their food.
Usually yes, but it kinda depends on the bear. Some are so habituated to humans that they won’t actually give much of a shit if you start shouting at them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this bear has spent a lot of time dumpster diving and/or stealing food from campsites, to the point where it doesn’t bother wild foraging anymore and it is not longer concerned by humans and the noises they make. For a bear like that it might be necessary for a game warden or park ranger to tranquilize the bear so it can be relocated to a more remote area. Such a relocation might actually be a death sentence for the bear though, if it never really learned how to survive in the wild.
Edit: I’m actually staying in an area right now that has a significant black bear population. All of the garbage cans are bear-proof, and there are stiff fines for leaving unsecured food or waste accessible to the bears. It’s all part of an effort to avoid having bears end up like the one in the video.
Well, being myself Mexican, and this incident happening in Mexico, we as a country and as population are totally uneducated in wild life matters, so I can almost assure you that this type of incidents surely happen quite frequently, so that’s why I think the bear is so chill eating besides humans.
Where I’m from in Canada, we’ve had lots of problems with black bears in areas where housing overlaps bear habitats. There’s more emphasis now on not creating “problem” bears by avoiding the conditions that would cause them to become habituated to humans and food-conditioned. It’s still an issue but at least there’s a lot more awareness now.
Oppisite, black bears are the ones you cannot play dead with and require you to either hide or fight back
Black bears are scavenger more so than predators. If they came across someone who they perceived to be dead they’d likely take at least a probative bite.
I’d imagine who ever had been faking being dead who react in a way that would startle the bear off.
And direct confrontation by appearing to be a threat is a good tactic for black bears, unless it is a sow with her cubs.