“Bro Is Fighting A Bear” – California Man Wields A Shovel Against Black Bear Over Stolen Cookie

Brave man - or dumb man? You be the judge. Man and wild animals have been duking it out since the dawn of time. From the moment we've been co-inhabitants on Earth, occasional dust ups between species have been practically guaranteed. And they all basically stem from three different things: territory, dominance, and food. Obviously, in more modern times, the run ins humans have with wild animals have become more and more unnecessary. Whereas our ancestors might have had to face off with an apex predator over some prey in order to survive, we are sometimes inconvenienced when a curious animal steals just a small portion of our food. Like this guy who got one of his cookies stolen at Lake Tahoe in California. Bears will do anything to get their paws on an easy snack or meal, and the bearin this clip is no exception. It wandered up to a lake side set up and stole away a cookie from an 18-year-old named Derek Sears, and that apparently meant war. Funny enough, it wasn't the teenager who went after the bear with a shovel trying to get the cookie back. Instead, it was just another random person who happened to also be out on the beach - and they inexplicably had a shovel (and apparently were waiting for a moment like this to arise). To be clear, this is not how you want to handle a situation like this. If a bear were to steal away some food - though it's not good for the wild animal to eat human food - it's probably best to not get aggressive with the bear. But for some reason, this shovel-wielding man wasn't going to let this cookie theft go unpunished. So he dangerously went after the bear with his "weapon," trying to scare it off and even making contact with it a couple of times. All while Derek, the teenager who had the cookie stolen away, provided commentary while taking a video of the showdown: "I want my cookie back. Hey give me my cookies! Oh my goodness. Bro is fighting a bear. Oh my gosh. The dude just fought a bear dude." The scariest moment of the entire clip is when the man with the shovel had to quickly shift from defense to offense. He was mainly just banging the shovel against things to try and scare the bear away at first, but doing so eventually angered the bear. So the bear charged at him, and it appears the man gave it a good "bop" on the nose, and the wild animal high-tailed it out of there soon after. Let's be clear... if that bear wanted to charge and maul him, the shovel probably isn't going to stop it. So, just because it worked out for this guy doesn't mean this is the way to go about a bear encounter. Even the shovel guy himself would likely tell you that it's best to let the bear retreat on its own... but with great shovel comes great responsibility, as you'll see below: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-tGMUWSh77/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link