A walker has been caught on camera narrowly escaping a bear attack after attempting to approach a mother and her cubs.
Filming from their balcony, a Redditor caught the moment a man imposed upon a bear family in the Appalachian mountains.
He was forced to back away when the mother stomped in warning. Luckily, the Redditor's dog barked and alerted him to the danger.
"I remember him saying he 'fancies himself a Daniel Boone type' just before making the approach," the Redditor wrote in a comment.
Reckless behavior around wild animals is on the rise as a new kind of tourist, driven by social media clicks, seeks up-close encounters.
Visitors to U.S. national parks have posed for pictures beside an elk, taken a selfie with a black bear, and gotten within charging distance of a moose to secure the perfect shot.
Park rangers have a slang word for this behavior — "touron," which mixes the word "tourist" with "moron."
Last year, Yellowstone National Park issued a notice asking its visitors to be more mindful of their own safety and that of wildlife.
This is particularly prudent advice when it comes to bears. One woman was left dead in Yellowstone after stumbling across a grizzly bear. Another had to be rescued by her husband with bear spray when a bear attacked her in Flathead National Forest.
Often, the bears' welfare is as much at risk as the people they meet. Last September, a mother and her cub were euthanized in Montana after "several conflicts with people."
Encroachment on habitat is a leading cause for encounters between humans and bears. Though bear attacks in the U.S. are rare, they are becoming more likely in areas like Montana, where conservation efforts have, happily, increased the local grizzly bear population.
Grizzly bears' recovery from near extinction has been matched by people's migration to the area, with isolated bear habitats now competing with the housing market for space.
If we are to live and vacation more closely to wildlife, then we will need greater awareness of how to safely interact for both our sakes.
The National Park Service says that, if threatened by a black or brown bear, you should play dead. In the case of a grizzly, your best bet is to fight it off.
But one thing you should never do — as the "Daniel Boone" copycat would do well to note — is surprise a bear.
"That bear could have closed that gap way quicker than I think he realizes," one Redditor commented.
"He's lucky he decided to play stupid games with a black bear and not a grizzly," another added.
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