Russians have a reputation for toughness, but this video of a bear casually snatching food through a kitchen window takes the cake. Or should we say takes the meat.
In the shocking video, an apparently unperturbed homeowner dutifully hands off pieces of raw meat to the ursine visitor as he prepares dinner. It’s hard to imagine being unfazed by a hairy paw reaching through your window, but from the behaviour of both human and bear, it seems like this sort of thing might happen often.
While the relationship between human and bear is certainly fascinating, this sort of interaction with wildlife is not recommended. The bear will surely remember the easy meal it received, and will surely return, perhaps in a less-friendly mood.
On an ethical level, it is also a bad idea to feed wild animals because they can become dependent on the easy score, losing the motivation and skills required to forage on their own. This can be disastrous when the free food dries up, and they must rely on themselves for survival once again.
That being said, it’s hard to imagine too many homeowners encouraging bears in this way. If this were our cottage, you better believe we’d be boarding up the window and switching to raw kale for dinner.
