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David Oppenheimer was lounging in his backyard in North Carolina when a bear wandered in.
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A camera caught the moment man and animal noticed each other, and it’s hard to say who was more surprised.
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The bear, who is a regular around the area, froze for a few seconds before dashing away.
David Oppenheimer was lounging in his backyard in Asheville, North Carolina, when a black bear sauntered in and caught him off guard.
Footage obtained by CNN shows the moment man and animal caught sight of each other, and they looked equally shocked.
Oppenheimer was first alerted to the presence of the intruder on Tuesday when he heard an alarm from his motion detector, but he didn’t see anything when he turned around to look, he told CNN.
“But about a minute later, the bear came along and was practically in front of me,” he told CNN.
He told Insider that the bear “kept looking” at him, which got him worried.
The footage shows Oppenheimer and the bear making eye contact, with Oppenheimer gripping a pillow on his chair in alarm.
“I was holding on to that pillow and thought if it came at me I would stuff the pillow in its mouth,” he told Insider.
He told USA Today that the proximity to the bear “made it a little awkward” but the bear didn’t seem frightened, only “puzzled” by the situation.
The bear ran away after the encounter. Oppenheimer said he’s thinking of attaching a rearview mirror to his chair to avoid any future would-be sneak attacks, per USA Today.
This was not the bear’s first visit to Oppenheimer’s estate in Asheville, which is within the Blue Ridge Mountains range. It previously stole a few bites fom a “bear-proof” bird feeder in his house, per CNN.
“Sometimes the bears take naps under the dogwood tree in my backyard,” he told Insider.
Black bears are not foreign to the area, Oppenheimer said. They are “used to people, and they encounter people all the time, especially dog walkers.”
Oppenheimer is a photographer who takes pictures of bears and sells prints of them.
“I think it’s more of a funny situation than something to worry about,” Oppenheimer told Insider. “I have watched many generations of cubs grow up here and they are familiar with me and the place.”
Read the original article on Insider
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