Jelly doughnuts and sardines are usually an either/or proposition. But in an emergency, they could be in the same meal. This was an emergency. A young bear, about a year and a half old, wandered out of the woods into North Carolina's capital city Monday night and was likely startled to see human activity when the sun came up. He climbed a tree near a hospital in Raleigh to get away, and wildlife officials had a heck of a time talking him out of it, WRAL reports. Perhaps thinking that the bear was a growing boy, or just taking a tip from Yogi Bear, Greg Batts of the NC Wildlife Resources Commission procured some sardines and bought some jelly doughnuts at Krispy Kreme to tempt the black bear down to safety.
Batts made a little doughnut-and-sardine path for the bear to follow to freedom, squeezing the jelly out of the doughnuts at the bottom of the tree for maximum scent. "It's just coming up into his nostrils and some point you know you just gotta say 'I'm getting down out of here, I'm gonna grab some donuts and I'm gonna get out of town,'" Batts says. Brad Howard of NC Wildlife Management says the experience was likely traumatic for the bear, which also appeared to have been struck by a car recently. Black bears, the only ones found in the eastern US, are making a comeback, ABC News reports. Encounters could be more common in the future. But leave the feeding to the professionals. (More uplifting news stories.)
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