"Close the Door, Mr. Bear"

[Dicey]

Oh my goodness, this one's deserving of a Darwin Award. She will probably get it eventually. There is so much wrong with this and with Yahoo's spin on it, but I'll let you be the judge.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/close-door-sweetie-watch-obedient-155537247.html

[gooki]

OMG, such a huge waste of BTUs. If only the door was closed quicker.

[meadow lark]

I’m just here screaming, “That’s not a F*@&ing dog!”

I’ve had actually had quite a bit of interaction with wild bears.  They are terrifying predators. 

[snowball]

I’m just here screaming, “That’s not a F*@&ing dog!”

I know, right?!

Every once in a while when I used to drive through the Rockies, when I lived in that part of the world, I'd come across some wannabe Darwin Award candidate who'd stopped their car, gotten out, and walked right up to some cute frolicking bear cub to take selfies while mama watched from a distance on a hair-trigger.

Irresponsible of Yahoo to publish an article that feeds into that sort of behaviour.

Reminds me a bit of that guy in South Africa who was killed by the two lionesses he raised from cubs.  He would let tourists come pet them...the only good part of that story is that the person responsible died, and not some idiot tourist's innocent kid.

[PMG]

Breaks my heart to see stuff like this! I am no expert, but neither is that woman. I checked her linked in. Things may be different in her state, but in mine, a bear that has multiple tags in its ears like the one in the video is just a human interaction or two away from being euthanized. The best thing you can do for a bear is ensure they aren’t friendly with humans.

Side note,  When I lived on the mountain I made sure our exterior doors opened out, not in. I had recurring dreams of a bear just pushing its way in. I had a stare down with a big old double red tagged bear just behind the lodge and got used to yelling at them and tossing gravel to get them to leave me be.

anyway. Silly human.

If you want to see great bear rescue and rehabilitation the Appalachian Bear Rescue is amazing and does daily updates via their website and social media. It’s a great follow. https://appalachianbearrescue.org/

[Dicey]

The bear is obviously not trying to get in. Clearly she is the one who opened the door. For her to encourage the bear to come forward into her house in order to "close the door" that she opened is mind blowingly stupid and irresponsible. I'm sure this was no random bear. It's probably one she "knows" from her misguided efforts to "save/protect" them. Fucking twit. And fuck Yahoo for the spin they put on it.

[uniwelder]

The bear is clearly not trying to get in. Clearly she is the one who opened the door. For her to encourage the bear to come forward into her house in order to "close the door" that she opened is mind blowingly stupid and irresponsible. I'm sure this was no random bear. It's probably one she "knows" from her misguided efforts to "save/protect" them. Fucking twit. And fuck Yahoo for the spin they put on it.

Certainly she must feed it pretty frequently to get it trained for that 'close the door' command.

[fell-like-rain]

While I agree that this is stupid behavior and could end up with the bear being euthanized, this woman is in hardly any danger. Black bears are generally fearful creatures, and there's almost no behavior (including getting between them and their cubs) that will induce them to seriously harm you. There's several hundred thousand black bears in North America and they kill fewer than one person per year. Grizzlies and polar bears are the real threat.

[hooplady]

While I agree that this is stupid behavior and could end up with the bear being euthanized, this woman is in hardly any danger. Black bears are generally fearful creatures, and there's almost no behavior (including getting between them and their cubs) that will induce them to seriously harm you. There's several hundred thousand black bears in North America and they kill fewer than one person per year. Grizzlies and polar bears are the real threat.

I'm more worried about the bear. As others have stated, making a bear more comfortable with humans puts it in danger.

[Dicey]

While I agree that this is stupid behavior and could end up with the bear being euthanized, this woman is in hardly any danger. Black bears are generally fearful creatures, and there's almost no behavior (including getting between them and their cubs) that will induce them to seriously harm you. There's several hundred thousand black bears in North America and they kill fewer than one person per year. Grizzlies and polar bears are the real threat.

I'm more worried about the bear. As others have stated, making a bear more comfortable with humans puts it in danger.

Yup, that's exactly my point. She is the endangering species.

[PDXTabs]

Oh my goodness, this one's deserving of a Darwin Award.

Did you check her LinkedIn? She's been interacting with black bears in a professional capacity for 23 years. I wouldn't hold my breath. But maybe, Steve Irwin died eventually.

[GuitarStv]

When I lived up in Northern Ontario we had a dump.  Black bears were always rooting through the garbage at the dump, so it was a popular small town entertainment thing to go down the the dump on weekends to watch the bears.  Everyone stayed in their cars, so there was no problem.  But at one point we had some people from out of town who decided to get out of their car and feed the bears.  And managed to get between the mother and her cub, and got pretty badly mauled in just a couple seconds.

Wild animals are not pets.  They should never be treated as such.

[RetiredAt63]

When I lived up in Northern Ontario we had a dump.  Black bears were always rooting through the garbage at the dump, so it was a popular small town entertainment thing to go down the the dump on weekends to watch the bears.  Everyone stayed in their cars, so there was no problem.  But at one point we had some people from out of town who decided to get out of their car and feed the bears.  And managed to get between the mother and her cub, and got pretty badly mauled in just a couple seconds.

Wild animals are not pets.  They should never be treated as such.

My sister lives in cottage country and takes her garbage to the dump.  When she goes she parks the car heading out, leaves the door open and the engine running, and carefully checks to see where the bears are.  If they are close she moves the car.  If they are far she tosses the garbage and gets right back in the car and leaves.  Everyone there does that. They respect the bears.

Several years ago an Olympic athlete was doing a training run (Quebec I think?) and was killed by a black bear.  Just because they are not as dangerous as a brown (grizzly) bear doesn't mean they aren't dangerous.