Bear cubs with ‘desire to inflict chaos’ keep wrecking trail cams, Minnesota group says
A family of bears has developed a taste — or a burning hatred — for trail cameras, and they’re relentlessly attacking them in the Minnesota woods, researchers say.
Staring out into the rugged wilderness of far northern Minnesota, the cameras capture the same four culprits: a mother black bear and her hefty cubs, video shared by the Voyageurs Wolf Project shows.
They casually approach, their intentions unreadable until they begin gnawing and clawing at the cameras, destroying the eyes and ears of researchers studying the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, video shows.
“This mama bear has trained her 3 cubs to be weapons of mass camera destruction that will terrorize any trail camera found in the woods for years to come,” the group said in a Sept. 7 Facebook post.
The bears have mauled the cameras set up at this particular site, overlooking a beaver pond, five times over the course of a year, they said.
For many, the cubs are simply too cute to be mad at.
“But don’t be fooled,” researchers said. “These are highly-trained deviants prowling the woods in search of technology to destroy.”
The danger to trail cameras may seem limited now, but this technology-hating bear family could just be the beginning, researchers warned.
“Some day these cubs will have cubs of their own and the desire to inflict chaos and carnage on cameras will be passed on to the next generation,” the post read. “And a day will come when no camera will be safe in the woods.”
Some wondered if there might be other motivations for these camera attacks. Are the devices emitting some noise that humans can’t hear? Do bears take privacy more seriously than anyone expected? Are trail cameras actually tasty?
None of those are likely explanations, according to the group.
“Hard to know what exactly motivates them to come after cameras,” researchers said.
The true explanation may be very simple.
To the bears, cameras are a unique object that is probably “fun to mouth and play with.”
Or, “they might just do it because they enjoy seeing people in pain,” researchers said.
While black bears are curious animals, they rarely attack people, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and there have been no recorded deaths in the state due to bear attacks.
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