Black bear scents tourists at Bearskin Lodge in Gatlinburg’s second incident in a week

It’s always great to go somewhere that has great wildlife, but if they decide to get too close, a great experience can turn into a terrifying one.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee is at the top of many people’s travel bucket lists. Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains, there are plenty of things to do in the quaint town. One of them is to head out into the woods and try to spot some of the many black bears in the area. But whenever there are a lot of people near a large bear population, those bears notice the abundance of available food and slowly move closer.

Just last week we reported on a black bear that attacked a food stand in an amusement park and attack a poor worker. A few days ago, another incident occurred at the Bearskin Lodge just down the road.

A video posted on TikTok shows a young black bear approaching a woman and her child who are clearly not happy with the situation, and who can blame them? Black bears are usually very gentle, but we have seen what they are capable of when it is time to celebrate.

People nearby did their best to calm her down and the bear eventually moved on, but it was a terrifying few seconds, especially considering the young girl standing just a few feet away.

“It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. You see, if you had the food, he would take it… He’ll go.”

@seriouslythoughitstrue Bear casually approaches guests at Bearskin Lodge. #Bear #Nature #fypage #fypシ゚viral #tik_tok #followback #viraltiktok #viral_video #tennessee ♬ Original sound – Seriouslythough

Luckily, the bear went elsewhere to look for food, and all they had left was a good story. However, this is the second incident in a week, and authorities are on high alert.

Matt Cameron, spokesman for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, spoke to WATE about plans to capture and euthanize the bear from the Bearskin Lodge incident:

“We cannot relocate a bear with this behavior, which is a direct result of humans feeding bears. This is extremely dangerous and fortunately no one was injured…

This is not normal bear behavior. It happens when a bear has obtained human food either from garbage, through access to unsecured food, or through intentional feeding by humans throwing food to it and the behavior escalates.”

Cameron later spoke with Outdoor living and confirmed that they have set traps at the theme park and euthanized a bear matching the description of the bear that attacked the worker. To date, no bear has been caught by the traps at the hotel.

On one hand, this is a natural consequence of many people living near bears, but as much as I love animals, I will always show team spirit and we can’t let little girls be so close to being eaten or service workers be attacked and expect life to go on as normal. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s pretty clear that people need to stop feeding the bears, do their best to seal garbage cans and dumpsters, and stay alert because you just never know when one is going to show up.

Here is the clip of the bear attacking the amusement park employee. Be warned, it is a suspenseful film.

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♬ Original sound – zackskepticon