You have to see this! Bear release goes wrong as animal runs out of cage, charges ranger
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TOO CLOSE — An aggressive bear was caught on camera going after a ranger who had just lifted the animal’s gate on its cage to release it.
The intense encounter happened in Armenia in late October 2024. It’s been shared across countless news outlets over the past three weeks and on various social media platforms such as TikTok and Reddit.
The video shows a ranger standing on top of the bear’s cage as he lifts the gate so the bear can come out. Immediately after lifting the gate, the brown bear runs out, turns, and heads straight towards the ranger.
The animal runs into the side of the cage and falls backward. It quickly gets up and knocks the gate the ranger had barely let go of to the ground.
Meanwhile, the ranger is seen trying to get into the back of a truck parked against the cage. Before both of the ranger’s feet even seem to touch the truck, the truck’s wheels begin spinning, and it takes off.
Luckily, the ranger somehow manages to find his balance instead of falling out and onto the ground where things wouldn’t have been in the ranger’s favor.
With the ranger in the back of the truck and onlookers watching the chaos unfold, the bear chases the vehicle from behind for a short distance. The bear then speeds up and begins running parallel to the moving truck as the video comes to an end.
Reports say nobody was hurt, but federal grizzly biologist Frank van Manen told Cowboy State Daily that what’s seen in the video is a terrible example of how to handle bears. The Wyoming newspaper did an article on the video.
“The scenario shown in the video is highly irresponsible, both from a human safety and bear safety standpoint,” he told the news outlet.