These bears were filmed at the Elliot Lake dump, July 2006. Although bears are beautiful and awe-inspiring creatures, eating trash and human food is very detrimental to the bear's survival. Mother bears learn that trash is easy food to eat and they in turn teach this to their cubs. The cubs grow up not knowing how to hunt for food. Their natural instinct to hunt and forage becomes lost. It's not hard to figure out what happens to a bear who loses its instinct to seek out its natural food. This is harmful not only to bears but humans as well, because once a bear learns to associate food with people, humans are at a greater risk for encounters and even attacks. You know what they say -- "A fed bear is a dead bear." NEVER feed bears ANYTHING!

Emma-O decided to post these videos to not only show people how amazing these animals are, but to also teach that this is NOT what we should be encouraging our bears to do. Since these tapes were made, a tall gate was installed at the Elliot Lake dump, and security cameras mounted to catch those offenders who purposely dump garbage in order to entice the bears out of the woods.

Please enjoy these clips, and hopefully Emma-O will someday have videos to post of bears in their "natural" habitat, and not at the dump.

If you have any problems loading these videos, try going directly to Emma-O's YouTube page and watching them from there.