Grin & Bear It: Depressed Florida Black Bear Becomes Unwilling Selfie Celeb
An unhappy black bear was spotted along a Florida highway last week, and authorities are warning tourists to stop taking selfies with it. As for the subject of these paparazzi, the photographic attention is simply unbearable.
By Liz Days · July 26, 2024
Disclaimer: While this article is based on bear-y accurate facts, it does contain some grizzly satire.
We all have our “off” days, weeks, months, or even years; when depression sets in, life seems harder to bear, and we feel far from our usual “bear-ull of laughs.” Add to that a throng of humans delighted to capture your pain on camera, and you might understand the plight of one black bear sitting beside a telephone pole along Highway 98 in Florida last week.
According to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office, the black bear was showing “signs of severe stress”, but for passing—and stopping—motorists, that stressed-out bear was also cute as hell, and worth the risk of bodily harm to snap a pic for the ‘Gram.
“OMG I was like, I can’t WAIT to show my friends. They are going to FREAK OUT! It’s like if the teddy bear I had when I was a kid came to life… but was suicidal. SO COOL!”
As for the black bear, it was harder for us to get an interview, but a local red-shouldered hawk offered us her observations.
“Look, I probably shouldn’t even be talking about him behind his back, legally, but Doug is not doing well. He was briefly a therapy client of mine (the only one I didn’t eat) and I consider him a friend... in that I stalk him pretty regularly by flying circles wherever he is and staring down at him with my dead eyes. He is, in my opinion, going through a major depressive episode.”
Packs of onlookers, who required Rangers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to dispatch, were breaking all the bear safety guidelines that Floridians are taught: Don’t approach or crowd a bear (it will feel threatened), don’t try to hug a bear (cuddly as it looks), and don’t use the iPhone’s “dramatic cool” filter (it’s unflattering and, frankly, rude).
But the question is, why is Doug The Bear in an emotional downward spiral, unable to discourage all these humans bear-ing witness to his suffering? The bear naked truth may not be as adorable as you’d hoped. Donna Hawk, again, “kee-ah”ed her thoughts.
“If I had to guess why he’s feeling this way, I would say it's because 1) the temperature is oppressive in a whole new way (I almost fell out of the sky last week from the heat wave) 2) he might be injured (trucks drive like maniacs around here) 3) HUMANS ARE DESTROYING HIS HOME. Same thing happened to Winnie-the-Pooh: crippling depression and death by starvation. You try to feel good when you're hungry and have no place to go. See how long it takes before you break. Also, Doug really didn’t enjoy season 6 of ‘Real Housewives of Miami’. Pretty sure that was the last straw.”
