For folks in Pennsylvania, bears are a common sight. Roughly 20,000 wild bears call the area home, PennLive reports. They feast on grass, roots, insects, and other wild treats, generally keeping to themselves. But occasionally, there’s a human-bear interaction that takes the region by storm…
Throughout the summer of 2014, Perry Township residents had been seeing a heartbreaking sight: a young bear with its head trapped in a bucket.
According to news reports, the bear had been stuck for months. Luckily, a little crack in the bucket allowed him to breathe and eat some food. Wildlife officials had set up live traps to catch it, but somehow it continued to elude them.
One day, Krissy Elder spotted the bear wandering her father’s property— a sighting which prompted her to create a (now defunct) Facebook group to raise awareness about the bear’s plight.
“I watched the bear bounce its head off the fence,” she told PennLive.
“It just couldn’t see. That poor bear couldn’t see where it was walking.”
When animal rescuers Dean Hornberger and Samantha Eigenbrod got wind of the bear’s story their hearts dropped. “I said right away, ‘We’re going to have to go out there tomorrow morning and see if we can help this thing,” Hornberger recalled.
Hornberger and Eigenbrod gathered three friends and set out to locate the animal.
The group met at 1 PM off Rt. 368. They searched for a few hours but couldn’t seem to locate the bear. After exhausting the possibilities, they made their way back to the truck. When they arrived, a sight greeted them that immediately made their jaws drop.
Upon spotting the bear, someone turns on their camera— and a nail-biting few minutes ensue.
In the video, you see Hornberger approach the young bear in a giant field. As can be imagined (especially with no sight), the animal becomes frightened and immediately starts to run.
After a few seconds, Hornberger’s able to grab onto the bucket— but when he pulls, it doesn’t come off.
Turns out the “bucket” was actually a ‘maxi’, a black airbag meant to provide cushioning between a tractor and trailer. The bear had gotten its head stuck through the metal ring, and Hornberger wasn’t able to pull it off. The ring would have to be cut.
After a bit of time, Hornberger is joined by the rest of the group who quickly help him wrangle the animal.
“We all sort of dog-piled on top of the bear to get it down,” he said.
They try to cut the bucket with a knife until finally, their only choice is to use a hacksaw.
Now, I won’t give away too much, but I assure you that this video has a happy ending.
Unfortunately, bears getting their heads stuck in random items is more common than you’d think. It often happens when the curious bears are looking for food; they end up sticking their noses when they don’t belong. A few weeks ago, a similar incident occurred in McHenry, Maryland.
Rescuers spent three days hunting down the 100-pound (45kg) cub. In a post made by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, staff wrote:
“Wildlife and Heritage Serve response staff racked this bear cub for three days and, with assistance from Maryland Natural Resources Police, were able to rescue this 100 lb male cub from the bucket that covered his head.”
Since being uploaded to Rumble, Hornberger’s heart-racing rescue has been viewed thousands of times.
People love how the volunteers stepped up to help the animal when they were given the shot.
“Congratulations for human help.”
“Amazing! Faith in humans restored ;)”
“There should be more people like them!”
As mentioned, these sad scenarios happen more often than we think. In order to protect our bear pals, please be cautious to keep your garbage sealed and to always pick up after yourself when camping. Although they’re big and scary, bears deserve a happy life just like the rest of us.
See the video below.
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