Bear Stuck In Vehicle Freed By Deputies

The El Dorado County, California Sheriff's Office captured this dash cam footage of one of its deputies shooting out the rear window of a small car with beanbags in order to free a trapped bear. It looks scary, but the beanbags are just powerful enough to take out the glass without hurting the bear. The small black bear seemed to have got the message, and skedaddled as soon as it got the first chance.

In all likelihood it wasn’t a person who put the bear in its present predicament, but the bear itself. Bears are notoriously clever, and one was recently captured on video using one paw to pull the door handle, and then using its elbow to open the door. It then crawled into the driver side and helped itself to snacks left on the passenger seat. While the smarter than average bear was enjoying its pic-a-nic bliss, the car door closed behind it, trapping the bear in. In that video, a police officer had to be called to open the door, and then quickly step away as the bear dashed to freedom. In fact, the scene is becoming all too common where bears share the habitat in increasing numbers. Videos aplenty testify to the growing problem.

Why are bears in cars a problem? Well, the bear isn’t interested in hurting anyone, as far as it can be seen. It is almost always going after food left in the vehicle. Once inside, somehow the door shuts, and that’s when things get bad. Bears are clever when it comes to getting food…they just seem to go stupid after they’ve eaten, because they can’t reverse engineer their raid to get out. Imagine what goes through your head when you have to run to the post office, you pull out your keys, go to open your car door, and then suddenly you notice a 200 or 300 pound bruin in your car. Shock? Humor? Unfortunately, the aftermath is not so pretty.

Take this video, for example. The owner is going to have to explain the situation to the insurance company and hope a new back window is covered under his policy. Otherwise, he will have to spot the repair out of pocket. A woman in Longwood, Colorado showed what happens in such a situation, where the bear tore up the upholstery, even the steering wheel suffered damage. So did the wiring harness as the bear ripped apart the vinyl panel on the rear gate of her minivan. The term ‘hangry’ bear may be exaggerating the situation only slightly. It can happen night or day, but a summer day time break in risks overheating the bear, just as it would be, or possibly even worse than leaving a child or pet in your car with the windows up.

Some bears do learn better than others, however, as was demonstrated by another Colorado incident where the bear (again, after utterly destroying the car interior) honked the horn repeatedly to plea for help. The police came and rescued the bear.