Watch a Bear Who Has the BBQ Fired Up and He’s Chowing Down

I love fun bear moments where bears are doing bear things and humans aren't messing with them. This is one of those things although there is something that concerns me about a bear who has the BBQ fired up and is chowing down. I'll attempt to explain.

A vacationer in Gatlinburg, Tennessee just shared this. If you're not aware, no place in America likely has more bears than Gatlinburg. More on that in a minute. Here's what the guy who captured the video said. The last 3 words are what worry me:

My friends and I went to Gatlinburg, TN for the weekend. We had just made a few slabs of ribs and sat down to eat when we saw something black walk passed the door outside. We went to look and saw a bear, helping itself to the BBQ sauce for the ribs. Seemed friendly enough

Seemed friendly enough? Oh, dear. (*face palm*) Let's watch the bear living his best BBQ life first.

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Here's some scary wildlife math for you. Gatlinburg has thousands of bears in the nearby wilderness. Gatlinburg has millions of visitors who vacation there every year. That means you can greatly multiply the potential human/bear interactions. That's terrifying.

That math leads me to the ultimate question which was really asked on Gizmodo. Can you be friends with a bear? NOPE. As they mention, friendship is something that animals don't understand. A bear which is not a social animal to start with especially shouldn't be viewed as a "friend". They are a carnivore who will potentially harm you seriously especially if they believe you're after their food source. (E.G. here - BBQ)

I'll cut the guy some slack for not understanding that you don't leave your grill fired up with meat on it when bears are nearby. It's just a fun video moment we can laugh at now and not a potential Big Blue Marble friend moment though.