A black bear has been caught on camera staging what might well be the most careful break-in ever perpetrated by a wild animal.
In a video shared with Newsweek by Ring, a California homeowner captured the moment a local momma bear with cubs decided to go foraging around inside her car late one night.
The footage was filmed at a property in the South Lake Tahoe area.
The U.S. Forest Service estimates that California is home to anywhere between 25,000 and 35,000 black bears. Few, if any, are likely to behave in the way the bear in this particular video does.
A still from video footage shows a “polite” bear breaking into a car. The car’s owner joked that the mama bear’s carefulness was down to the fact she had “just had her nails done.”
Ring
According to Keryn, the homeowner who shared the footage with Ring, the furry intruder is known affectionately as “Polite Bear” by locals because of her habit of always leaving whenever she sees people and never causing a mess.
This latest video is a prime example of the bear in action and even showcases the mom’s impressive ability to open a car door. In the clip, the bear can be seen opening the door before exploring the vehicle’s contents, potentially searching for something that her cubs and her can eat.
Whatever the case, she once again lived up to her name, with Keryn confirming that the car was left completely unscathed with the bear displaying a surprising level of finesse in the circumstances.
Keryn told Ring: “Polite Bear must have just gotten a manicure because she was very careful opening the door. She rummaged through the trash bin but there were only paper wrappers in there. She also tried to taste my cherry-flavored lip balm in the front seat. She’s definitely teaching her cubs bad habits!”
The footage represents something of a contrast to another video of a bear opening a car door to get some leftover McDonald’s inside the vehicle.
In the video captured on a Ring security camera outside a property in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the bear can be seen carefully using the handle on the driver’s side of the vehicle to get in. Once inside, however, the bear shows scant regard for the vehicle’s interior as they search for the hot food.
This scenario doesn’t always play out quite so smoothly though. In similarly extraordinary footage that was also filmed in Tennessee last year, a black bear was caught on camera smashing the window of a car parked outside a rental cabin before climbing inside the vehicle while her three cubs waited nearby.
Worse still, one car owner shared footage showing the fallout after a bear got trapped inside a woman’s car. The footage, which has racked up over 12 million views and counting, shows a woman attempting to clean up the aftermath of the incident.
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Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.