An overnight gas station attendant in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe, California was used to seeing bears in the parking lot of the store he worked at, but one night a particularly large black bear decided he wanted something a little more fresh than what’s available in the dumpster.
“I was walking toward our automatic door and it opened, and then I seen him trying to come in so I stepped towards him. He comes into the store, kind of lunges at me.
I usually have to run them off once or twice a night out of the parking lot, never out of the store though. I was just trying to get him out, that way he didn’t trash the whole place.”
But after the bear lunged at him, he quickly changed his approach and decided to just let the bear do his thing, which was obviously the smart decision. Getting that close to the bear in the first place is a super risky move, as human attacks are rare but do happen.
According to Pests Hero, black bears are the most likely to attack humans, although it’s due to a much higher number of encounters than the more aggressive, and dangerous, grizzly. Eventually, the bear grabbed a bag of Snickers and hit the road, fortunately leaving Paul with nothing more than a good story.
But that wasn’t the end of this bear’s late night shenanigan’s, as he returned again, this time with a different worker on duty.
“That was the other grave yard guy, his name is Dave. Apparently that night, the bear laid down on the floor and ate a whole box of 3 Musketeers.”
Unfortunately for Dave, the bear didn’t want to leave after grabbing his snack, so he was forced to call the police to see what they could do about the situation. A comment on the YouTube video by Phillip Hennings made me chuckle, but also summed up the bear’s next move perfectly.
“The fact that the bear knew to leave when police showed up means this wasn’t his first rodeo. This bear knew what he was doing”
The bear ran out and didn’t return to the store, thanks to authorities capturing it and transferring it to a new location. Crazy. Can you imagine just trying to get through your shift and suddenly you’re face to face with 500 pounds of beast? That’s a no from me dog…
Happy that the workers and bear got out of this in the clear.
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