Five playful young bears turn Canadian yard into a ‘bear sanctuary,’ video shows
A Canada resident looked out the window to find five bears had taken over the yard — and didn’t plan to leave any time soon, video shows.
“I always look out the window just to see if there’s anything out there,” Wendy Chartrand told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “I woke up to find three bears on my side lawn. And when I went back to look out the window again, there were five bears.”
The young black bears converged on a yard in Prince George, British Columbia, according to a video shared Aug. 28 on the Facebook page of a local business, Park Avenue Apparel. Chartrand is a co-owner of the store, she told McClatchy News.
“Apparently I have a bear sanctuary,” Chartrand wrote in the post. “This is a once in a lifetime photo moment.”
Video footage shows the bears spread out across a recently-mowed yard. The animals are medium-sized and appear larger than cubs but not yet fully grown.
Three bears are wandering closer to the house, video shows. Two others are playing and wrestling near a tree. Several houses can be seen in the background.
One bear wanders off camera toward the house while another pounces on the nearest playmate, the video shows. The pair wrestles around, standing up and knocking each other down.
“It was a pretty amazing experience,” Chartrand told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The bears stayed in the yard for about two hours, she said in comments on Facebook.
“Looks like a family reunion,” one Facebook user commented.
The animals stuck around until Chartrand used the sirens of her home alarm system to scare them away, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Prince George has had a “record summer for bear sightings,” city officials said in an Aug. 24 news release. The city in British Columbia is about 470 miles northeast of Vancouver. Local officials encouraged residents to take extra precautions to prevent human-bear interactions.
This story was originally published August 30, 2023 at 1:44 PM with the headline "Five playful young bears turn Canadian yard into a ‘bear sanctuary,’ video shows."
