Nature is full of tax men. Some of them have dorsal fins and rows of razor-sharp teeth. Others are covered in fur and prowl the timber. In this video, which Top Tier Outdoors posted to Instagram on Monday, a black bear appears in a shooting lane and disappears into the woods with a hunter’s freshly-shot whitetail doe clamped in its jaws.
When the video starts, the camera is focused on a stand of trees below two hunters. They zoom in on a dark figure moving through the timber, barely visible or audible above the light rain.
“Oh no,” one person whispers behind the camera as the young bear emerges from the thick.
“No, oh my God,” the other responds.
“Leave our deer alone,” the first person whispers again.
Spoiler: The bear does not leave the deer alone. Instead, it pads over, sniffs the carcass, and picks it up by the neck and drags it out of sight, back into the trees. The hunters behind the camera balk at the scene.
This video raises a lot of questions, many of which commenters on the video were quick to point out. Why didn’t the hunters yell? (Wild black bears are often frightened by humans.) Where were they hunting, and might they have had a bear tag? Unfortunately, the video, which Top Tier Outdoors attributes to a man named Devin Simpson, seems to create more questions than answers.
Despite the confusion, the footage is a clear reminder that that yes, black bears will eat deer. Black bears are consistent and indiscriminate scavengers. They eat loads of berries, bugs, plants, mushrooms, mast, and leftover meat scraps from other predators’ kills. They’re also extremely opportunistic eaters. This means they’ll make the best of any available food source, which often gets them in trouble in more suburban and urban areas with lots of unsecured trash cans.
Read Next: What Do Black Bears Eat?
Black bears can quickly grow accustomed to a recurring food source in a particular area. This can lead to bears exhibiting aggressive behavior toward humans, which often results in local authorities euthanizing the bear. In this case, however, the bear found a natural food source — a dead critter in the woods — and made the most of it. The hunters, however, were not so lucky.
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