Watch This Bear Try to Break Into a Car—and How a Group of Friends Scared It Away

From Men's Health

• A black bear tried to break into a Mercedes-Benz in Asheville, North Carolina.

• Christina Fuentes and her friends shouted at the bear to scare it off, all while capturing a video of the whole encounter.

• Black bears are extremely common in North Carolina, but they rarely attack people.

It’s not often you see a bear open a car door and proceed to enter like he owns it, but that’s exactly what happened to Christina Fuentes and her friends over the weekend. The group was settling into their cabin in Asheville, North Carolina when an unexpected visitor was spotted outdoors: a black bear attempting to break into their car outside.

That’s when they decided to take a video of the animal and share to social media. The video originally went viral on TikTok, when user Jacob Bean (@madlyexplore) shared it and it collected more than 6.5 million views. Fuentes also shared the video to her Instagram.

In the original clip, you can hear the group shouting at the bear to try and scare it off. “Bear! Go home!” someone yells, while Fuentes asks, “Are you sure you locked the door?” When the bear approaches the car, another person shouts, “Don’t f--k with the Mercedes!”

Then, the group starts screaming and shouting loudly, which scares the animal right off. The confused bear slowly backs away from the vehicle, then turns and runs away for good.

“It’s funny because before we had all started recording, Jacob said, ‘Bears can’t open car doors can they?’ Because we were all trying to remember if we had locked the doors,” Fuentes told Prevention. They were completely surprised that the bear, whom they’ve nicknamed Charles, got up on his hind legs and opened the door with no problem. “I knew bears were smart but didn’t know they were that smart!” she says, adding that the bear left huge dirt paw prints all over the car after he ran away.

Fuentes says this is not the first time their group has seen black bears in North Carolina. Just a few weeks prior, she said her friends spotted a bear, but he “he didn’t make himself that comfortable,” she says.

According to the North Carolina Wild Life Organization, black bears are very common in the mountain and coastal regions of the state. They’re also the most common bear in the United States, the National Park Service (NPS) reports. The large animal builds dens in the cavities of trees, hollow logs, and caves in autumn and emerges in the spring, which is when sightings of black bears are more likely.

Although the group of friends made a ton of noise when they saw they bear, the NPS recommends staying calm and slowly backing away sideways if you are within close distance of a bear—unless a black bear tries to attack you. In a black bear attack specifically, avoid playing dead, try to escape to a secure place, and fight back hard. (Note that brown bears are a bit different.)

Black bears are considered non-aggressive and rarely approach humans. When they do, they’re usually looking for food. In this case, the group was a safe distance away in a secure location—and screaming at the top of their lungs seemed to do the trick.

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