A Canadian woman woke up last week to find that a black bear had broken into her car and demolished 69 cans of soda, leaving a sticky mess and a bit of video footage that caught the culprit in the act.
Every spring and summer where I live, I wage a war with the bears. They will do just about anything to eat our garbage. Last year, they ripped the back off the shed we kept the garbage cans in. The garbage truck comes every second Friday, but if you put those cans out on Thursday night, the trash is not going in the truck. It’s getting strewn all over the neighborhood, across the neighbor’s yards and into the forest that our property backs onto.
Black bears are just clumsy oafs; generally nothing to be worried about unless there are cubs involved, and they’re incredibly cute animals, so I kind of enjoy our little back and forth — until I’m wandering around the yard early on a Friday morning picking old bits of slimy garbage up. See, once bears figure out that humans are an easy food source, they’ll just keep on coming back. Sometimes, if they get a little too comfortable, they’ll be shot with a tranq dart and relocated, but it’s not too often. And on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, just a ferry ride away from where I live, the residents are dealing with the same thing.
Sharon Rosel, who lives in Earl’s Cove, B.C., told the CBC that her dog woke her up at around 3 a.m. on April 13. The dog was letting her know that something was out there, getting its nose into their things. Rosel looked out the window and spotted the bear, which had smashed her car’s window and was pulling things out. “He was drinking massive amounts of soda,” she said.
The bear kept it up for an hour and a half, grabbing the cans and breaking them open with its teeth. According to Rosel, the bear had a preference. The orange soda went first, then the cola, then the root beer. But when it hit the diet sodas, the bear turned its nose up. Of the 72 cans, the bear drank 69. Apparently Rosel runs a food truck, which explains all the soda.
“Then I tried psyching him out by telling him I was a bear hunter,” Rosel remembered. “That didn’t do anything either, so I had to stand by and just watch him devour my car.”
She even tried throwing water on the bear from a safe vantage point on her balcony, but the bear didn’t seem to mind. Nor did it mind her attempts to reason with it. Rosel told the animal she needed her car to get to work in the morning, but her pleas went unnoticed.
Bears don’t generally have much of a sense of personal property, so in the process of getting to the soda, the animal did a real number on Rosel’s vehicle. The leather seats were torn, the window was broken, and the soda was absolutely everywhere.
“Of course, white leather interior goes really good with orange Crush,” Rosel laughed. “I’ve been around bears since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I have never seen them go after pop.”
Bears along the Sunshine Coast, much like bears in other parts of the more remote areas of British Columbia, are getting pretty good at getting into cars. Many of the residents are careful about these things, and don’t generally leave anything edible in their vehicles.
“[Bears] can be attracted to the slightest aroma in your car, such as a candy wrapper or scented air freshener,” wrote the non-profit Sunshine Coast Bear Alliance on its website. “Please keep your vehicle windows closed and locked and doors locked to avoid damage and a surprise encounter.”
