A first-time hunter in Pennsylvania got to see more wildlife than she was expecting after four black bears descended on her recently downed buck and started eating it.
Jordan Zabinski went hunting for the first time over Thanksgiving weekend this year, and she was expecting to get a buck. She was afraid of bears, but her husband told her not to worry, according to WTAJ.
“I was so terrified of a bear, and my husband was like, ‘I’ve never seen a bear except for this one time,’ he said, ‘don’t worry, you’re not gonna see one,’” Jordan Zabinkski said.
Turns out, he was wrong.
About 20 minutes after shooting her buck, she began to hear something else crunching through the snow. She thought it was a deer, but it turned out to be a black bear, not 50 yards from where she was sitting in a tree stand.
“They threw my deer around like a rag doll, they ripped the tail off and cubs played catch with it,” she said in a Facebook post. “This is definitely one hell of a story, and I’m glad I got it on video or else no one would believe me.”
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Black bears are rarely a threat to humans, but Zabinkski was still afraid. “At first I was really quiet, but then I really started to freak out,” Zabinski told WTAJ. “It’s been a while now and no one’s coming. What if they don’t get me in time?”
To make matters worse, her husband wasn’t answering his phone. He was helping her brother with his deer, and she had to wait another 30 minutes before they arrived.
When they did, they yelled at the bears, which ran away. Fortunately, the bruins only managed to take off the deer’s tail and didn’t damage much meat.
“Now I know that if I just yelled, they are going to run because that’s all they did was just come up and yell,” Zabinkski said.
If you encounter a black bear in the woods, the Pennsylvania Game Commission recommends alerting the bear to your presence by making a sound and backing away slowly. Black bears rarely attack humans, but in the rare instances that they do, they’ve felt attacked or threatened (usually by someone’s dog).
If the bear does begin to approach you, wave your arms and shout while backing away. The idea is to intimidate the bear into retreating.
If a black bear does attack you, fight back. “Bears have been driven away when people have fought back with rocks, sticks, binoculars and even their bare hands,” according to the Game Commission.