r/interestingasfuck • u/lonewolff321 • 1d ago
The unexpected tenderness between an apex predator ( tom ) and the human
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u/ComfortablyNumb2425 22h ago
Wasn't there a guy who was unnaturally friendly with bears and spent a lot if time with them and then suddenly they turned on him and he was dead?
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u/em_paris 22h ago
Not "they" but more likely one bear (possibly two, I don't remember). Great documentary about it called Grizzly Man.
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u/honeyy-dew 22h ago
I believe the bear that killed them was a new one they never met before.
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u/SoSadStayMad 17h ago
Additionally, they had been warned explicitly not to go camping at the time of the attack due to it being so close to hibernation season, which meant the bears in the area were hunting for food much more aggressively than they typically would outside the season
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u/coffeeanddurian 21h ago
One theory (not proven), there was an older bear , which wasn't new, he had been seen for several years. But he was "less friendly" and "more grumpy" for several years (interacted less I guess), and also found it harder to find food than the other bears. When the tragedy happened, it was later than usual (just before hibernation) and this old bear may not have gotten as much food as the other bears etc. I can't remember who exactly had this theory, but I think it was the guy who used to do the pick up in the helicopter.
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u/SharkeyGeorge 22h ago
Yes it would have been super rude if it was one of the bears who knew him.
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u/honeyy-dew 21h ago
🤣🤣🤣 Yaa very rude ...
Yaa it was like winter just started or something and there was shortage of food. So this bear was hungry and wanted to eat before hibernation. And these two silly gooses looked delicious I guess!!!
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u/OldLegWig 20h ago
it was actually an ill-tempered bear that he had bad run ins with previously. it was an older female, if i remember correctly.
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u/DeeKayAech 18h ago
If by turned on him you mean that one of them ate him and his girlfriend for lunch, then yes. They turned on him.
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u/SuitableHurry3795 20h ago
Him and his girlfriend were killed by a grizzly. There is another guy out there doing it right now. Getting in between sows and their cubs. He will be toast soon according to locals.
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u/Kineo207 18h ago
His name was Timothy Treadwell. As others pointed out, there is a documentary on him titled Grizzly Man
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u/Louisfrites 19h ago
Yeah but he was an idiot who thought going in a bear’s territory during the time when the said bear was hungry was a good idea
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u/lonewolff321 1d ago
It blows my mind everytime how casually Russians treat these absolute giants like regular house Labradors.
Edit :edit : in case anyone thinks it's ai please check this he got 1.8 million followers on insta
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u/matthew0001 1d ago
It often helps that with these kinds of interactions, the human in question typically raised the bear. Parental bonding, being a source of food that keeps them well fed, and with the addition of proper behavioral training when they are a cub you can make a bear fairly docile.
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u/SlayJayR17 1d ago edited 1d ago
Except the one that bit his handler of 10 yrs and killed him out of nowhere. Stephen miller. He was killed by his 700 pound grizzly in his cage.
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
I know with black bears the list of fatalities is very low. Something like 180 cases since 1900. And I suspect quite a lot of those were caused by a dumb human who pushed their luck. I wouldn’t want to try my luck with a grizzly or a polar
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u/Sudden_Construction6 1d ago
Polar bears are cool and fun to hangout with!
Source: Coca-Cola commercials 😅
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u/moving0target 1d ago
With a black bear, it takes a lot of cause one to lay paws on a human. Its larger cousins don't require a lot of provocation.
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
I think with black bears it sometimes seems that they’re more interested in what snacks youve got on you than your actual self :)
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u/Straight-Treacle-630 1d ago
Timothy Treadwell and his gf who decided to “live among” wild bears, til they were mauled/eaten…not the same as bears raised by humans attacking, but they all def have the upper paw.
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u/TillamookTramp 1d ago
Treadwell was an idiot who really thought he had a meaningful relationship with grizzly bears. His gf wasn't happy about his fixation and was visiting him when they were killed.
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u/HorseThrough 1d ago
Not killed. Eaten alive while their video recorder captured audio of the entire event. I think the first cop who listened to it immediately deleted it so no one else had to hear it.
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u/Random-Dude-00748 1d ago
In the documentary Grizzly man Werner Herzog listens to the recording and tells the mother of Timothy Treadwell never to listen to it.
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u/SlayJayR17 1d ago
No not him. Stephen miller is the one I’m talking about. He was in a cage with his 700 pound grizzly and was standing with it and it turned and bit his neck that was it for him.
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u/firerat82 1d ago
that's the underlying problem with owning anything that can kill you.
It CAN kill you. And it's an animal. Somewhat predictable? Maybe. But it only takes one time for it to get motivated to disassemble you, and that is that.
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u/dealmaster1221 21h ago
Is this not AI? 10second cap, hilarious behavior or is this always like this in Russia.
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u/No-Dig9354 1d ago
Just because he has a lot of followers doesn't mean it's not AI.
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u/IRockIntoMordor 1d ago
There's several AI profiles on Meta platforms and not all of them are marked. You tend to see some signs still, but it's gotten ridiculously harder and is about to elude us all. Whelp. I hate it so much.
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u/Neilp187 1d ago
Thats a hell no from me.
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
Ive got a feeling that this particular bear has been “domesticated” and trained from a very early age. I think hes Russian ? They use him in parades and circuses and the like. Can’t say Im thrilled about that TBH. i read that bears are almost as smart as some of the great apes, so this idea of teaching one to play ball doesn’t sit well with me.
Then again, what do I know ? Maybe he’s got a fantastic life ?9
u/NoLobster7957 1d ago
One day the bear is gonna look at that dude and it's gonna be like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he just morphs into a big Tbone steak
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u/SantosCalzonesBatman 1d ago
If the human doesnt feed it, sure
But bears (outside polar bears) dont hunt humans for the lols
As long as its well fed, the bear will have zero need to kill the human
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u/Solius-Noctis 1d ago
I don't put my faith in carnivorous apex predators not being carnivorous apex predators
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
Bears are incredible animals. My favourite animal actually. I really like the North American Black Bear. They’re so smart. Anyway, that guy is braver than me.
One thing I learnt about black bears from You Tube is how quickly they can become domesticated if they’re raised as orphans from cubs. There was one lad whose parents ran some kind of animal sanctuary and he had this little black bear from when it was tiny. Honestly, it was like a dog ! Followed him around, played on the swings and hammocks ….all that stuff. Beautiful relationship those two had.
Obviously, these are apex predators and Im not daft enough to want to go and scratch ones tummy, but they truly are magnificent animals. I could happily watch them for hours.
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u/iowafarmboy2011 1d ago
Naturalist and former AZA-accredited zookeeper here! I'm so glad you love these animals too! We need more people who love wildlife on this planet!
I do want to mention, though, that tameness and domestication are two separate things. There are currently no domesticated bear species. Tame, yes, but domestication means they've been purposefully bred and selected over many generations for traits like tameness and reduced aggression.
While it's cute to see things like this, the man in this video is borderline irresponsible, if not completely. Being a tame but non-domesticated predator means that its natural instincts are still just under the surface and can emerge quickly, intensely, and unexpectedly. Not because they're bad animals or anything... they're just bears, and they need to be respected and kept in situations that allow them to express the behaviors they've evolved for (even if those situations are habitats created by humans), rather than being treated like pets that they aren't.
There's a reason you don't see accredited zookeepers going into enclosures with lions or bears. It's irresponsible and puts the human desire for an experience above the safety of both the animal and the person. Even a tame predator can be incredibly dangerous, and familiarity with humans doesn't eliminate those instincts.
I didn't fully realize it until I started working with wildlife, but there is a very noticeable difference in behavior between domesticated animals and tamed wild animals. Recognizing that difference gave me a much deeper respect for these animals.
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
Thank you for that and for explaining the difference between domesticated and ‘tame’. You can tell Im an amateur :)
Im in the UK so the only bears we have here are in a zoo :( which I can’t say I approve of. Our zoos aren’t quite up to the standards of American ones or so Ive been led to believe. It was during the pandemic when I found a really interesting documentary about black bears, presented by David Attenbrough. I found it fascinating and developed an admiration for these creatures from that point on. That led me down the You Tube rabbit hole and soon I was devouring everything about these bears. The unintentional, comical behaviour, their intelligence, how human expansion has affected their environment, how devoted the sows are to their cubs. So much to learn.
Anyway, thanks again for the info. Every day is a school day on here :)
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u/iowafarmboy2011 1d ago
Of course my friend! Bears are so badass and i love them too!
But yeah, the domesticated and tame difference is something i would say most people dont realize which is completely understandable! being a person who's actually experienced that difference first hand i always like to share my perspective when this stuff comes up! Cheers my friend!
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u/cocoagiant 1d ago
It always puzzles me that people (not zoo people like you but regular people) mess with wild animals and try to put them in situations which they aren't intended to deal with.
Especially so when we've spent 50,000 years already creating the perfect companion for ourselves.
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u/Pristine_Direction79 1d ago
I'll second this! I have a feral rescue dog and even just the results of multiple generations of feral breeding are noticeable compared to a "normal" breed of dog.
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u/Hathor-8 1d ago
Former zoo professional here (and animal domestication researcher), totally agree! Thanks for posting this.
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u/Bengamey_974 1d ago edited 1d ago
It reminds me of the photograph that slowly approached a pack of hyenas for years, until they let him be in the middle of the group and follow them while they were hunting.
He surely made awesome images but that sounds so incredibly dangerous
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u/corisco 1d ago edited 1d ago
there's a case of a dude and his wife who tought they were friends with the bears, but they went to stay with them on the wrong time of the year. both were mauled to death and only the audios remains.
there's even a documentary about them called grizzly man.
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u/iowafarmboy2011 1d ago
Yup, I teach in the National Parks and I will sometimes mention Timothy as a really good example of why we keep distance and respect wildlife
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u/Slesho 1d ago
I recommend looking into bear Wojtek which accompanied Polish soldiers during WWII
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u/PurplePenguinCat 1d ago
I live in black bear country, and we are surrounded by woods. Mostly, they do their thing and we do ours. It's fine, until they get into the garbage cans. Then, I'm less than pleased. 😆
For a few weeks, we had a bear that kept showing up in the morning in front of the house right when my daughter was supposed to be out there for the school bus. That was uncomfortable.
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u/pichael289 1d ago
Alot of bears like this in Russia are descended from circus bears
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u/MrMoog26 1d ago
That makes sense. Theres quite a lot of videos out there with these bears performing. Not sure how I feel about that … They don’t appear to be unhappy, and Ive seen plenty of videos of unhappy bears who have been kept in grim cages for years. I guess its better that the bear does a bit of juggling than be locked up with no sense of freedom at all. Some of the videos Ive seen are really distressjng
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u/dimeteros 1d ago
Someone said that if you feed them well enough they will be chill af.
But I guess the moment you skipped a meal, he might eat you
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u/Chilled-Nirvana 1d ago
A few moments later 😁
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u/GBKMBushidoBrown 1d ago
People in the future will thin this gif is AI
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u/TheDevilWearsKhaki 22h ago
Nah, AI bros aren't this creative. The little dance the bear does before the kick is pure human improv.
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u/cjacksen 18h ago
Women live longer. This is one of many examples of why.
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u/HalfSoul30 17h ago
This man specifically will live longer though, on account of the brown bear bodyguard.
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u/Lopoloma 17h ago
Something else catches Toms attention, he forgets you're there, you make a wrong movement or Tom's just scared you're suddenly in his personal space and mauls you to death
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u/OneMansTreasure_ 16h ago
Can happen at any time in a millisecond. That man is insane to be doing that
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u/Bjork_scratchings 19h ago
I always wondered if bears look super cuddly as some sort of evolutionary trick to help them get prey easily. Like the opposite of those animals that are essentially harmless but can make themselves look scary somehow.
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u/TCK1979 17h ago
How can anyone resist running up to a bear cub to give it a big hug!
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u/booperdooper56 15h ago
Only humans are insane enough to find bears cute. This is like the stories of otter moms showing off their cute babies to discourage predators even though in reality, they would just throw their babies to the predator to save their own skins
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u/MizneyWorld 14h ago
Bears are terrifying with hair but I get the perception of “cuddly”, but there would be no qualms if the fur was taken away.
Naked/hairless bears are nightmare fuel
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u/Professional_Echo907 13h ago
Whenever I see a dude cuddling a bear, I instantly assume it’s Russia.
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u/whiteapplebourbon 1d ago
Years ago I watched the Grizzley Man documentary. For years he returned to the wilderness to visit his "friends". Until one year they were hungry...
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u/Lopsided_Prior3801 1d ago
To be fair, think he was killed by a bear he didn't know, as opposed to the ones he had befriended.
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u/MojoRisin909 1d ago
He also stayed way later than he usually did and the later you stay the more dangerous it gets. The dude was still a nutjob to the max, but he'd have likely been ok had he have not waited until starving bears were roaming around looking for an easy meal.
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u/MojoRisin909 1d ago
Yeah, I watched the documentary on the dude, and he truly believed he was 'one with the bears' or some kind of freak of nature bear whisperer. The prevailing theory on how he never got mauled is the bears were just so freaking shocked and taken off guard by this crazy dude just running up to them making excited kid noises. It honestly makes sense to me, and in the footage mad bears definitely give the 'Wut The Fuck?!?!' face.
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u/DeliciousPoetryMan 1d ago
I'm pretty sure that the bear that approached him was a new one to the area that didn't like him, its not like it was 40 year old Winnie the Pooh seeing Christopher Robin whilst in a hungry mood.
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u/hungrycarebear 1d ago
The bear who attacked him was an older male grizzly that was new to the area and not one he had ever interacted with.
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u/Toki-B 22h ago
Bears have personalities. Some are incredibly gentle social beings, and some will cut you.
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u/DeltaBravo831 21h ago
Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and be the opposite of video guy, and assume they're all the latter type.
But I will observe their antics from afar. On this hill, way the fuck away from them.
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u/ZepGoodTimesBadTimes 18h ago
The bear is certainly testing the tenderness of the meat he has in front of him!
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u/Caifanes123 1d ago
My problem with this is that those animals are so strong even if they love you to do death, what they consider to be a playful tap could probably still break your bones.
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u/Plenty_Status_6862 18h ago
There's a famous celebrity bear named Bart. He was in the movie w/ Brad Pitt. He was very well behaved & well trained. There's a documentary about him & his handler on YouTube
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u/Beneficial-Shame9144 1d ago
bears are not apex nor predators, they are opportunistic omnivores
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u/SaintUlvemann 1d ago
...bears are not apex...
Eh, they're probably not "apex predators" in the traditional sense, but there is a broader concept called "apex consumer" that includes herbivores large enough to escape predation in adulthood.
Brown bears are an omnivorous species, but as an omnivore, they definitely exist in this same "apex tier" throughout most of their range, a tier also occupied by bison, tigers, lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes... adult brown bears are large enough that through most of their range, there is nothing that will ever try and eat them, and that makes them "apex".
Other than humans (and we don't count, we're too unique of a case to be useful in understanding natural ecology)... other than humans, the only known predator to hunt bears are tigers, but tigers don't exist across most of the brown bear range, there's just a few small areas of overlap in Amuria.
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u/luv2ctheworld 1d ago
One half of my brain: oh that's adorable! Other half of my brain: oh he gonna die!
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u/The1TruRick 15h ago
Video stops where it does because the bear bites his whole head off in one chomp
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u/Shadowsnake30 1d ago
Bears and Polar looks so innocent and can look fluffy but they are scary what they can do to you. I love them but I wont come close to them like that or let them be near me.
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u/infinity-skateru 23h ago
The non polar variety typically avoid/are afraid of humans. The polar kind however will actually hunt humans.
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u/JustletmeBee2026 20h ago
Given their circumstances, I’d eat the first human I meet in the Arctic Circle.
“Hey! What brings you out to the middle of barren ice?”
“Just out for a stroll. Hey, could you not eat my face!?!!”
“Nyum nyum nyum.”
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u/ChickenNPisza 19h ago
Polar bears are the only ones that will hunt you for food. Grizzlies will fuck you up for farting in their territory or sneezing in the direction of their cub lol
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u/LegendaryMauricius 18h ago
Between an apex predator and a super predator.
Until the super predator lowers his guard and gets eaten.
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u/Spanarkonungur 1d ago
Bears are completely unpredictable, you never know what way they’ll react. And this lad is absolutely brimming with confidence in himself. Fair play to him, sure, as the saying goes, I sing a song to the madness of the brave!
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u/zwifter11 11h ago
I wonder if there was a guy with a firearm stood behind the camera man, just in case?
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u/jackalheart 1d ago
I hate 2026 man. I bet this is AI, but I don’t know
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u/Worth_Scene9525 1d ago
it is not, he goes by a name TOM (youtube- tom the bear russia)
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u/Kundrew1 1d ago
Watched the YouTube channel. Still think this video AI. It's their newest video, and in no other does the bear sit like this. Putting the arm around him is a very human motion.
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u/JBPlantagenet 1d ago
I mean...the bear hugged and comforted him. If its not AI, I've been wildly misinformed about the tenderness of bears.
I suppose he could be a trained bear of some sort.
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u/djrocky_roads 1d ago
You have not been misinformed, brown bears will absolutely fuck you the fuck up.
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u/New_Enthusiasm9053 1d ago
A brown bear also carried ammunition during WW2 for a polish logistics company and drank beers and had cigarettes with the troops. Brown bear != Grizzly.
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u/GeorgeLovesBOSCO 1d ago
I had no idea bears became so friendly the moment they smelled human piss and shit
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u/Lets_be_stoned 1d ago
All I can think about is the breath…I can only imagine what a bears mouth right next to your nose smells like 🤢
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u/TotalVersonnt 1d ago
That's a really, really big hug you get from a bear. But still I prefer squirrels.
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u/NoLobster7957 1d ago
I have the most trouble differentiating bears from large fluffy buddies and not predators. My brain just will not accept that something this chubby and adorable would feast upon my living flesh if given the chance.