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Bear breaks into a Pittsburg nursing home and tries out the beds, Goldilocks-style

A brave aid that coaxed the bear out with a Rice Krispy Treat.

Photo credit: Canva

Bear breaks into nursing home trying out beds like Goldilocks

Goldilocks is a classic children's story about a little girl who makes herself at home in the house of a family of bears. She tries the food left out on the table before climbing into all three beds to see which felt best. Of course, this was a fairytale with a lesson to be gleaned in the end but it would seem that a black bear in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania thought he'd try to imitate art by breaking into a nursing home.

The bear, while large is still a cub, broke one of the windows at St. Andrew’s Village in Indiana County before snooping around the facility. He found residents' bedrooms and crawled into several different beds presumably to get comfortable or look for food. It wasn't until a staff member heard a loud bang that the bear was discovered. Charlene Elliott, a lead certified nursing assistant is the one that heard the loud noise and rushed to see if someone fell but much to her surprise, it was a bear.

 bear; black bear break in; black bear; bear in nursing home; Pittsburgh nursing home Curious bear peeks around a tree trunk.Photo credit: Canva

"I was sitting there at our nursing station and I heard a big crash, so I thought it was one of the aides that fell and I got up and I seen that it was a bear coming down the hall towards me," Elliott tells WPXI. "Going through my mind was get the thing out of here."

While Elliott was startled by the bear's presence, she didn't panic scaring the bear or the residents. Instead she told the residents and aides to get all the doors in the building shut in an attempt to keep the bear from hiding out in a room. The baby black bear was loose in the facility for about fifteen minutes and though the nursing assistant attempted to get the rooms closed off in time, the bear still found his way into some of the residents' beds. Yes, the residents were still occupying the beds when the bear climbed in for a quick snuggle.

Elliott told the residents not to move or touch the bear for fear that he would maul them out of fear. That's certainly one way to get your heart rate up, wake up with a bear in your bed. Thankfully none of the residents the bear got cozy with were harmed in the bear's Goldilocks-style adventure. Surprisingly, the residents also remained calm with one of them offering for the nursing assistant to feed the bear her sandwich so he would hopefully leave the the facility.

Instead of feeding the bear a sandwich, they decided to use Rice Krispy treats to lure the bear out of the facility with the help of one of the resident's walkers. As the bear snacked on the cereal covered in melted marshmallows, the workers moved him along by pushing him on the rear with the walker until he was completely outside of the facility. The bear ran away but to make sure the cub didn't find it's way back to demand more treats, the facility contacted the game warden which came out and set up a trap outside of the building.

 bear; black bear break in; black bear; bear in nursing home; Pittsburgh nursing home Bear family portrait in their natural habitat.Photo credit: Canva

You'd think they'd put things in there like berries, salmon and other things bears like to eat in order to trick him into going inside, but they didn't. The bear clearly enjoyed sweet treats so the game warden filled the bear trap with donuts and other pastries which must've smelled delightful because the bear was trapped quickly. They plan to take the bear far away from St. Andrew’s Village to a place with less processed food but plenty of room for a bear cub to become a bear without interacting with humans.

Thanks to the quick thinking of the workers and residents at St. Andrew’s Village, everyone remained unharmed, including their furry visitor.


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Science

Forget Congress. It's the annual 'Fat Bear Week' election and everyone needs to vote right now.

Now, this is body positivity.

Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

It's Fat Bear Week and we pick the winner.

Everyone knows that fat animals are infinitely more visually appealing, much to veterinarians' collective dismay. They may not be at their pinnacle of health, yet we love them anyway, especially when they're babies. Bears, however, are supposed to get chunky so they get a pass. Before the winter when they hibernate, they're all about feeding their faces and storing fat for the winter. Wildlife archivists Explore has put all these fat bears in one place so we can vote on who gets to be supreme Fat Bear. Fat Bear Week is an annual event that anyone with internet access can participate in.

The bears, unfortunately, don't win any prizes for being named the fattest bear in Alaska, but America wins a prize by seeing big fuzzy bear bellies. Sure, the bears make you wish you could pet them and give them all the head scratches, and yes they'd probably try to eat you if you actually tried. That doesn't stop this from being the cutest competition out there. The event is well run, with brackets to predict the winner. I don't know what brackets are but it makes it sound so much more exciting.

Photo by Rey Emsen on Unsplash

When exactly is Fat Bear Week, you may be asking? It's now, like right now, so go download your bracket thingy and enter your picks or whatever you do with brackets. Fat Bear Week runs from October 5 through October 11 and match-ups for voting start at 12 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. EST. This contest is ruthless because there are no second chances. If a bear's extra fluff isn't up to the internet's standards then it's eliminated. No take backs.

For every head-to-head match-up between chubby little cubbies, you get one vote to pick the bear that's showing the most fat gained. The bear with the most votes gets to move to the next round and the bear with the least amounts of votes gets to no longer be judged by random strangers on the internet. Wait, I think we all would like the prize of not being judged by strangers on the internet.

This all may seem like a weird thing to have turned into a competition but it really isn't. Fat Bear Week started in 2013 after someone took pictures of the same bear from the bear cam and commented on how fat the bear had gotten when preparing for hibernation. According to video journalist Mike Fritz, he noticed comments under the videos of the bears from the bear cam about how chubby all of the bears were getting, and an idea was born.

Can you blame the commenters? These fat bears are seriously cute and once I figure out what brackets are and how to use them, I'm going to vote in this unexpectedly wholesome contest. May the fattest bear win and come out of hibernation looking as if they haven't skipped a meal and are well rested. Now, go vote! It'll make you feel better.

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Joy

People are hilariously debating how pandas survive in the wild

Buitengebieden/Twitter, @ArtMcFall/Twitter

No longer an endangered species, pandas seem to thrive on being goofy.

Pandas aren't real. They can't be. There's no way this big, bumbly black-and-white bear that somersaults down hills and noshes on bamboo all day long actually exists.

Have you ever seen any other animal on Earth that looks remotely like a panda? No, you haven't. Why? Because they're not real. No animal could be that adorable and hilarious and stuffed-animal-like in real life.

I kid, of course. Kind of. Pandas are just the cutest goofballs in nature. They barely look real when you just see them in still shots, but when you see them in action, it's just silly shenanigan after silly shenanigan.

I mean, look at this:

And this:

And yet again:

Seriously, how do these creatures survive in the wild?

There are some hilarious theories. Twitter user "Art McFall" shares the idea that they simply aren't real. "They're actors in suits, originally created as a prank for a World's Fair in 1908," they wrote. "It's got out of hand and now the Chinese government run a school where 1,000 panda artists train and are then sent around the world as covert animal ambassadors for China."

 

Okay, but if you go back and watch those videos again picturing people in panda suits, it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Some shared a theory that they're basically stoned all the time—that the bamboo they eat has some kind of effect on their energy. (Pandas are mostly vegetarian, with almost all of their diet coming from bamboo. It doesn't give them food poisoning as is posited below, and in fact digests almost like meat for them. But it does take a really long time to eat enough of it to sustain their huge bods, so they spend a lot of time sitting around looking like they've got the munchies.)

More fun panda facts:

Did you know that pandas will sometimes climb trees backwards, hind feet first, until they're in a full handstand so they can whizz higher up on the tree to mark their scent? Yup. (They also poo up to 40 times a day. So no, you really don't want a pet panda. Sorry.)

Scientists aren't totally sure why they're black-and-white. Could be camouflage, especially in the snowy areas of China where they live, but they don't really have a need for camo since they have very few natural predators.

(Take note, humans: If we could maybe stop killing each other for two seconds, we too could live a silly life full of carefree fun like pandas do.)

This description was my favorite, though:

"Dis iz a bear. She lives on da mountains, this is how they have evolved to travel. They are floooooof and they are sof and warms. They have no dangers but humans. They are peace and love and bamboo. Save da bears."

Floooooof!

"If a bear starts rolling fast enough it can orbit the earth." Sounds right to me.

But pandas will never roll that fast. Case in point:

 

So yeah, pandas are real. And if you want to know the answer to the original question, they survive in the wild by being not nearly as playful as they are in captivity. Thankfully, giant pandas are no longer listed as endangered thanks to conservation efforts in China and around the globe. Let's keep up that energy so we can keep these marvelous creatures thriving both in the wild and in captivity when they can't be released.

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National Park Service shares helpful—and hilarious—advice for how to handle a bear encounter

National Park Service/Facebook

People often think of government bureaucrats as being boring stuffed shirts, but whoever runs social media at the National Park Service is proving that at least some of them have a sense of humor.

In a Facebook post, the NPS shared some seasonal advice for park-goers about what to do if they happen to encounter a bear, and it's both helpful and hilarious. Not that a confrontation with a bear in real life is a laughing matter—bears can be dangerous—but humor is a good way to get people to pay attention to important advice.

They wrote:

"If a bear clacks its teeth, sticks out its lips, huffs, woofs, or slaps the ground with its paws, it is warning you that you are too close and are making it nervous. The bear's nervous? Heed this warning and slowly back away. ⁣What else should you do or not do if you come across a bear in Yellowstone?

⁣🐻 Do not immediately drop to the ground and "play dead." Bears can sense overacting.⁣⁣

🐻 Do not run, shout, or make sudden movements. ⁣⁣

🐻 Do not run up and push the bear and do not push a slower friend down…even if you feel the friendship has run its course.⁣⁣

🐻 Running may trigger a chase response in the bear and you can't outrun a bear. Bears in Yellowstone chase down elk calves all the time. You do not want to look like a slow elk calf. (Apologies to the elk calf.)⁣⁣

🐻 Slowly putting distance between yourself and the bear may defuse the situation. ⁣⁣

🐻 Draw your bear spray from the holster, remove the safety tab, and prepare to use it if the bear charges.⁣⁣

🐻 In most cases, climbing a tree is a poor decision. Bears can climb trees (especially if there is something up the tree that the bear wants). Also, when was the last time you climbed a tree?⁣⁣

🐻 Running to a tree or frantically climbing a tree may provoke a bear to chase you. If the friend you pushed down somehow made it up a tree and is now extending you a hand, there's a good chance you're not getting up that tree. Karma's a bear."

HA.

They also shared this link to more bear safety tips on the NPS website.

Well done, random National Park Service employee. Thank you for entertaining us while educating the public about wildlife safety at the same time.

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