Melissa Alves captured this video for her TikTok account of a black bear walking through a busy shopping area in Whistler Village, British Columbia heading towards Cow’s Ice Cream looking for a snack. The pedestrians look on. They react in different ways but calmly. One lady runs away then turns around and starts to capture her own video as the bear heads towards the ice cream parlour. Apparently, it was shut or the door was closed deliberately to keep him out.
If that’s the case it’s a shame because it would have been nice for this bear to have got his ice cream and then he could have gone on his way.
It is an example of human-animal conflict although there was no conflict on this occasion. But they say that if a bear becomes this habituated to humans it is the end of them because they hang around humans too much and eventually somebody complains or is hurt and the bear is shot by the authorities to protect the public.
The general mood on TikTok in comments is that it is sad to see a bear behave like this. Perhaps he or she is a sub-adult who hasn’t learned the ropes. And of course, has become habituated to human villages and towns. He has no fear in being in a town mixing with people and it is better that bears are fearful of humans. This protects them.
When you look at the video you can see the different reactions. There is a man with his child watching as the bear pads his way through and he is only about 5 paces away. He’s been criticised for being careless with his child! I’d agree but the bear was definitely non-hostile. I like the way the pedestrians reacted: curious but friendly.
One cool dude turns and casually looked at the bear, gets out is smart phone and videos it and then walks on his way. He gives the impression that this happens quite a lot and British Columbia does have some fantastic wildlife and no doubt they do interact with humans in various ways.
Melissa said: “In this case, I think letting the bear pass through without scaring it was the safest thing to do”. Definitely right and I hope that this bear survives and is not shot by rangers from British Columbia Department of Wildlife and Resources or whatever else they call them.
Below are some more articles on bears.
