Idiotic Tourist Gets Charged By Bear After Harassing Her Cubs In The Great Smoky Mountains

Some people love to really press their luck. Could you even imagine provoking a bear out in the wild? Hopefully your answer to that question is "NO." It takes a very unintelligent person to do something so foolish, and that not-so-smart individual was caught on camera doing exactly that in the Great Smoky Mountains back in 2019. This video is recirculating after it was posted on the must-follow social media account "Tourons of National Parks." They do a wonderful job highlighting what not to do when you visit any of our country's national parks, and somehow, they always have content to post about. That must mean the stupid people really like to get out and visit national parks. This clip, which isn't "new," but might be new to you, shows a man harassing a mother bear and her cubs. The bears were walking about in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, minding their own business until this first-team, All-American dummy decided to mess with them. Another tourist near the area (named Paige Marple) had a vantage point of the encounter and got it all on tape. The mother bear and her cubs stroll by a car, and the entire time they are on the move, the guy is trying to coerce the cubs away from their mother. When the family moves in between two cars, the guy goes to the end of the car to wait for them to come out on the other side. That's when things get really serious, because once the mother bear saw him this time around, she charged after him. The man's ignorant confidence quickly turns into fearful regret as he ran and dodged the barreling mama bruin. Fortunately, the sow's charge was short lived, and the man was able to get away. If she would have decided to be more aggressive, this video might have been documenting a fatal attack rather than a ill-advised confrontation. Not only is what this man did senseless and short-sighted, it's against the law. It is illegal to come within 50 yards of bears in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and a violation can result in massive fines and even arrests (or a fatal accident). There's no word on whether this guy ended up facing charges, but at the end of the day, he's lucky he didn't leave his Smoky Mountains trip in a body bag. Take a look: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8cl1lPPxfU/?igsh=dW5odHMybm92bGJo