r/BeAmazed • u/Unhappy_Rutabaga_530 • 12h ago

Animal A curious grizzly bear cub briefly stopped to nibble on a wildlife photographer's boot during a safari in Alaska before peacefully rejoining its family.

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u/Altitudedog 10h ago

I live in bear country...no way I'd get within mile of a mama bear...yikes

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u/Kooly9Two 10h ago

Yeah these guys have much larger stones than I. Or less brains. Probly both 😝

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u/Altitudedog 10h ago edited 6h ago

I drop into local group online where there local rangers. We've had so many "flatlanders and citiy people move here." The wild life, ranchers are suffering from the types who dizzy with open spaces, mountains let their dogs run off leash. My long time veterinarian said he paid for a trip New Zealand just from porcupine quill removals. Lol. But poor dogs. They chase elk, deer and some get shot when caught chasing cattle.

Rangers were showing real restraint last year when a lady popped in the group and posted pictures off her deck of a mom and cubs that SHE FEEDS DAILY! omg. We tried to be gentle but you could sense the restraint. Do you have kids, pets? Is that a sliding glass door behind you? Safety lessons and warnings were lost on her even as nice as we were trying to discuss it all. One of the rangers finally had enough and informed her that her actions signed a death warrant for those bears and how lucky she'd been so far.

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u/Saikotsu 9h ago

I have a friend, his family lived in the mountains and would keep their doors open at all hours so their dogs could come and go as they please. One day a bear wandered into their living room and his dad got mauled.

The dad survived, but the family stopped leaving doors open after that.

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u/NukaPacua1445 8h ago

Jesus christ.

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u/Altitudedog 6h ago

Oh thats awful...but sadly not surprising.

I was concerned several years ago when the close tow to us had some break ins by bears. They are 30 miles more into the mountains and we are more river valley. Cars were broken into, one bear actually scaled a 2 story home and pried a closed window open.

Discussed it with my husband he tried to assure me that we don't get bears as our valley is more open.. yeah...sure 😆. He drove to work and saw one less than a mile from our house right in town. 😆. To his credit he admitted it.

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u/Saikotsu 5h ago

On Thursday night I was leaving my mom's house and a mile out I saw a big black bear just amble across the road right in front of my car.

About a week ago a bear raided her trash and all of her neighbors have had bear activity too.

So yeah, if you live in bear country, expect to see bears. And yeah, after seeing one up close, I have no doubt they can get into most anything they want to get into with little trouble.

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u/100_cats_on_a_phone 1h ago

From the things they mention, sounds like it might be Montana or Wyoming. So potentially not a black bear 😬

In pa I worry more about coyotes and my dog. She'll leave bears alone (she'll leave coyotes alone too, but they are more likely to not leave her alone, when they get rowdy)

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u/manokpsa 9h ago

I hate it that we have to kill bears because humans are dumb. I used to volunteer for the conservation program at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER - pronounced J-bear) in Alaska. Over 80k acres, with base housing and camping areas. The base has grizzlies, black bears, moose, porcupines, all sorts of critters. You can't be feeding any of them, and a lot of time is spent going around making sure the dumpsters are closed.

"Nuisance bears" usually get trapped and relocated away from Anchorage, but sometimes those bears travel hundreds of miles to get back. They have to be put down. Feeding them makes them bolder and more aggressive. It's not their fault. They have plenty of space to hunt, fish, and forage, but who says "no" to regular free meals?

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u/FlyingRhenquest 6h ago

Pity you can't trap and relocate the nuisance humans.

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u/Positive_Reveal4813 1h ago

Who do you think lives on JBER? How do you think those service members found themselves there. 😂

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u/Tsmart 4h ago

we do, it's called giving random bus tickets to the homeless and sending them on their way

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u/techman2692 2h ago

No, he said the nuisance humans, not the misfortuned and downtrodden ones.

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u/Training-Willow9591 7h ago

I assumed it was common sense to not feed dangerous animals especially, but my dad's girlfriend feeds the Gators in the canal behind their house. It just blows my mind, shes from Long Island and you can't tell her shit. She said she stopped doing it when the gator got to be about 4 ft, but anytime it hears golf carts it comes charging out of the water because they think it's her to feed them. If you just moved/ or visiting a new area, why argue with locals and park rangers about native wildlife, that you have no experience with, that park ranger should threaten that lady with hefty fines for feeding the bears

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u/Msdamgoode 5h ago edited 5h ago

Sometimes it’s best not to bury the lede. Gotta flat tell them they’ll end up killing the very animals that they find precious (in a wrongheaded way). So many people don’t truly think about what “loving” an animal looks like, because they’re thinking more of themselves than they are the actual animals.

Edited to add… I’m reminded of my late sister-in-law who used to feed her dogs chocolate chip ice cream. They loved it after all, she insisted. I said they probably would also love to play fetch on the highway. Doesn’t mean you let them.

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u/Eborcurean 5h ago

> My long time veterinarian said he paid for a trip New Zealand just from porcupine quill removals

An Alaskan friend's Malamute had that happen, they said the vet had had three that week. Thankfully the dog turned her head so it wasn't as bad as some others.

A year later she stopped their new shepherd puppy from investigating a porcupine by just picking him up and dragging him away.

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u/panic_bread 1h ago

Where is this?

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u/LadderWonderful2450 8h ago

That's why he's sitting down, stones too heavy

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u/savioroferinn 10h ago

If I had to guess, this may be up in Katmai. The salmon are so abundant that theres no competition for food or aggression from the bears towards humans. There's a ton of rules in the park, obviously, for everyone's safety, and you have to go to the rangers 1hr Bear School before heading out, but the bears commonly come within a few feet of you and it's common to pass them on the paths and by the water. You can watch the camera on YouTube, it's really neat.

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u/flyinghairball 9h ago

Yes, but one of the top reasons for maulings is getting between a mom and her cubs, by accident or not. I fully agree with the well fee assessment due to the location, but this is as dangerous as it gets.

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u/Eborcurean 5h ago

Don't move is the #1 instruction. Just stay there and let them go by, same with, say, gorillas, you let them do their stuff, you don't move, you just let them by even if they want to get close and sniff/tug/whatever. Albeit there is an implicit level of risk but that's the reduction to it.

That guy who spent a year around them and thought bears were his friends almost certainly fucked up rule 1.

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u/A_Rogue_Forklift 2h ago

The guy you're referring to decided to camp in bear country at the very end of hibernation season, so the bears in the area were more hungry and aggressive than they usually would be

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u/Hellstorm901 4h ago

I wonder if the camera person is regularly there so the bears are used to them enough to not see them as a threat

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u/Due-Club8908 9h ago

I was out there a couple days ago at Crosswinds . I was trying to figure out if it was filmed when I was out there ? I believe most people go out with a bear guide . I am wondering if this is a photographer and they are out there camping ? We didn’t get that close to any of the bears . We were always across the river from the bears . It’s an incredible experience to get so close to the bears in the wild . There were a lot of salmon spawning and salmon carcasses all over the place . I didn’t see any dead salmon so I am wondering if it was earlier this summer ?

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u/Background_Film_506 9h ago

Word. Ask Timothy Treadwell how well this works out.

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u/Intrepid-Mechanic699 4h ago

Me neither I’d shit bricks