You don't see that very often. He's just posing, just like a person," Stantic said. Mandy Stantic said she was working as a nurse in the northern Manitoba community of Lac Brochet last spring when she snapped several pictures of a black bear sitting cozily on a discarded sofa.
As people do in many rural and northern Manitoba communities, the Stantics took their daughter for a "northern safari" to the dump to watch the bears.
But this trip was different.
"Take a picture!" was her first thought after seeing one of the bears making itself comfortable on the couch. "You don't see that very often. He's just posing, just like a person."
Stantic said you can't see in the picture that there was a TV in front of the couch, too. "So it just looked like he was ready to have some popcorn and chill," she said.
You don't see animals kind of imitating [humans]
— sitting with their legs crossed, arms over the chair there."
Stantic has since gone on to a job in South Indian Lake, Man., but said she loved going for drives in Lac Brochet to see both the bears and the wilderness.
"They had lots of lakes, and roads that you could drive on for a good couple miles, despite it being pretty isolated up there."
Lac Brochet is about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, accessible only by winter roads or air. While the dump wasn't always photogenic, Stantic said it was always fun.
"Whenever somebody would come up with fresh garbage, the bears would all just come running, like a herd of bears to whatever vehicle was there so they could go through it first," she said.
"Just something different to see. You don't see it that often."
Source
As people do in many rural and northern Manitoba communities, the Stantics took their daughter for a "northern safari" to the dump to watch the bears.
But this trip was different.
"Take a picture!" was her first thought after seeing one of the bears making itself comfortable on the couch. "You don't see that very often. He's just posing, just like a person."
Stantic said you can't see in the picture that there was a TV in front of the couch, too. "So it just looked like he was ready to have some popcorn and chill," she said.
You don't see animals kind of imitating [humans]
Photos: Mandy Stantic
— sitting with their legs crossed, arms over the chair there."
Stantic has since gone on to a job in South Indian Lake, Man., but said she loved going for drives in Lac Brochet to see both the bears and the wilderness.
"They had lots of lakes, and roads that you could drive on for a good couple miles, despite it being pretty isolated up there."
Lac Brochet is about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, accessible only by winter roads or air. While the dump wasn't always photogenic, Stantic said it was always fun.
"Whenever somebody would come up with fresh garbage, the bears would all just come running, like a herd of bears to whatever vehicle was there so they could go through it first," she said.
"Just something different to see. You don't see it that often."
Source
The grizzlies of Banff use to do this too. It is called habituating to people and food. The grizzlies were eventually shot because they didn't understand why they couldn't just go to the people instead of waiting for the garbage to be laid out. So good luck Black Bears. Learn the limits or you will be shot.
Five decades ago my family would drive to the open dumps in Minnesota to watch the bears. Since then, we no longer have open dumps. Bears cannot access the trash because it's dangerous for their health directly and dangerous indirectly as they become habituated to humans providing food and being nearby. And no one wants a bear raiding their camp or cabin. Why on earth is Manitoba allowing bears to access open dumps? I thought Canada was more evolved than that!
I agree it is a bad thing to do to entice the bears to danger from Humans. The outcome is no in favour of the bears. They can get their heads stuck in cans and die of starvation and eating plastics that have food attached and also coming in contact with the worst predictor on the planet mankind.