In a viral Instagram video re-shared by Bears of the Day (@bearsoftheday), a hiker encounters a brown bear accidentally trapped in his truck cabin.
What's happening?
The Instagram video shows the man tying a long piece of rope to one of the back door handles to unlock the car door from a distance. While he's tying the rope on as quickly as possible, the truck is shaking violently.
From the distance, the man unlocks the car, opens the door, and out jumps a large brown bear who seems very confused about what just happened, as it walks away disoriented.
"Good call by this dude. Keep your distance," one commenter wrote under the Instagram video.
This unexpected brown bear encounter could have been perilous for the hiker had he not kept his distance. A BBC article on human-wildlife interactions recalls other encounters where passerby humans sustained permanent injuries due to unexpected wildlife attacks.
Why are human-wildlife interactions important?
Human-wildlife interactions may be becoming more frequent due to successful conservation efforts to protect wildlife. As wildlife population numbers grow and recover, these animals become more widespread in wildlife spaces that humans may enter.
Per the BBC article, Chris Servheen, a retired grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, explained that the most common type of bear attack occurs because the bear is afraid of the human, so it "tries to knock the person down or neutralize the person," so the bear can escape. The bear attacks occur as an immediate self-preservation behavior upon encountering unfamiliar species in their habitats.
Human-wildlife incidents may also be exacerbated by land disruptions and limited natural resources.
Destroying the land that wildlife inhabits leads to habitat loss, forcing wildlife to find new homes in unfamiliar, barren land. As a result, human-wildlife interactions may become more frequent as humans now occupy the spaces that wildlife species once did.
Rising global temperatures and changing weather patterns also affect natural resource supplies, such as available water, increasing the frequency of human-wildlife interactions as humans and wildlife depend on the same limited resource supplies.
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Yes — always 💯 What can I do to help human-wildlife conflicts?
To avoid a surprise encounter like the one in the Instagram video, take precautions when entering nature and spaces where wildlife species roam.
"The rear door handles on trucks are especially easy for bears to open, and they'll slam shut if it's parked at an angle," one commenter explained under the Instagram video. "For your safety and theirs, clear the food out of your car but most importantly LOCK YOUR DOORS, don't want our friends getting trapped."
Protecting the environment can keep both human communities and wildlife species safe by limiting these unexpected encounters. It also preserves the natural ecosystem, which promotes greater biodiversity for different wildlife species to thrive.
In Barre, Massachusetts, over 800 acres of land have been secured for habitat conservation, preserving the land's natural beauty while protecting wildlife habitat so species can roam freely. Conservation efforts in Brazil's rainforests have successfully brought back golden lion tamarins from near extinction.
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