Bear opens truck door, gets taste of coffee
Passenger seat ripped apart while vehicle owners hike in Wood Buffalo National Park
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, June 1, 2015
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
All Genevieve Cote could do was laugh when she realized a bear had opened the door of her vehicle and gotten inside late last month.
The passenger's seat took the most damage when a bear entered a vehicle at the Salt Plains in Wood Buffalo National Park. - photo courtesy of Genevieve Cote |
"I mean what do you do?" she said.
"A bear goes inside your truck and drinks the coffee, rips your seat apart but nothing else, and then goes away."
Cote said it was an amazing sight when she and her partner returned from hiking on the Salt Plains in Wood Buffalo National Park on the evening of May 22.
They had left their 2010 Toyota Tacoma - unlocked - in the parking lot and viewing area above the Salt Plains to walk down to see whooping cranes in the area.
They were gone for about 45 minutes before returning to their vehicle.
"When we got to the lookout, then we saw the truck door was open, like wide open," Cote said, referring to the passenger-side door.
Her first thought was to wonder if the door had been left open and then she was puzzled by foam on the ground until she looked into the vehicle.
"And I was like, 'Oh no, a bear got in the vehicle,'" she recalled.
"Then I had a little moment of fear wondering if there was still a bear inside. But it quickly dissipated. There was no bear around the vehicle at that point but there were tracks."
Even though the bear was gone, it left lots of signs that it had been there - a ripped-up passenger seat, claw holes in the driver's seat, and scratches on the paint.
Plus, it appeared the bear had bitten a Styrofoam cup containing coffee.
"I think it might have drank part of it," said Cote. "It spilled some of it, too."
However, she does not think the bear was attracted to the vehicle by the smell of coffee.
"I think that bear was just looking around because I had no food in my vehicle and the windows were rolled up," she said.
"I don't think it could smell anything. There was nothing in there."
Cote said probably the most amazing thing is the bear had opened the vehicle door.
In fact, she believes it opened both doors, because the driver's side door was also ajar, but not wide open.
The door handle on the vehicle is a common kind, consisting of a horizontal bar that is pulled outward and can be used from the top or bottom.
"So the bear put his paw on top of it and pulled it, and opened it," said Cote, adding that many people can't understand how the bear could open the door.
There were paw prints on the truck but she said the prints didn't appear all over, as if the bear had needed to search for the handle, she said.
"To me, it seems like it knew how to open a door, as bizarre as it may sound. I have no other explanation."
After the incident, she searched the Internet and found videos of other bears doing the same thing.
"You wouldn't think you would have to lock your vehicle for wildlife, but I guess you do," she said.
Albert Bourque, regional environmental co-ordinator for the South Slave with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said the incident seems to indicate the bear was familiar with the presence of humans and getting food rewards from them.
Bourque said while vehicles are unusual in a wilderness environment, the animal did appear to have had experience with them.
"So if it's a potential food source, they're going to investigate it and they're going to be picking at whatever they can and it's not unusual for bears to open doors," he said.
Bourque can't say for certain if the bear knew what it was doing in opening the door.
However, he told the story of a bear in the Yellowknife area that once learned how to take the lids of jars after breaking into cabins and taking the jars into the woods.
"And none of them were broken," he said. "All the lids were removed."
Cote and her partner are not too concerned about the damage to their vehicle, which they bought three months ago.
"All the pieces of the seat are there. They're just kind of ripped apart," she said.
"So we're just going to glue them back together, put on a seat cover for now, and it's fine. It's not like it's shredded completely to pieces. And then we're just going to find another seat from a scrap yard or something."
Plus, she noted they run the Fort Smith Paddling Club and the vehicle is on trails all the time, so she's confident it will be getting many more scratches.
