DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Or at the beach. Or anywhere else. Trying to scare off a bear with a shovel is a potentially terminal idea, no matter how many cookies the bear has stolen.
But it certainly makes for a video you can’t peel your eyes away from.
The confrontation took place earlier this week at Pope Beach in South Lake Tahoe, and was caught on camera by 18-year-old Derek Sears, who was part of a party at the beach. His unattended open cooler soon became too much of a draw for an opportunist black bear, who quickly zoned in on the food inside.
“It took my cookie!” protests Sears very loudly.
"Dude is fighting a bear." Watch as a man uses a shovel to scare away a hungry bear from a picnic area on a California beach. pic.twitter.com/e0Qu538jkeAugust 13, 2024
Initially, they try to scare the bear off by throwing a beach chair at it – it may be Sears himself who does this judging by the way the cameras bobs down and up just before the chair appears flying though the air – but when that fails another unidentified guy runs towards the bear, brandishing a shovel at it.
At first he hits the shovel on a bench to try to scare the bear away, but when that fails, it looks like he actually whacks the bear in the face.
At which point the bear decides it's had enough and runs off into the woods.
But honestly, is it worth risking your life for the contents of a cooler? Do the sensible thing if you’re in bear country and keep food sealed in secured, airtight containers if you don’t need immediate access to it, and definitely don’t leave food unattended. They’re just two basics of bear safety.
Lake Tahoe is in northern California along the California/Nevada border and is a place well known for frequent bear encounters.
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