The flooding in North Carolina and surrounding areas have caused a devastating loss of life and property throughout the Appalachian region, and it’s not only the human residents who have been experiencing displacement during this disaster. In this video we see a family of bears with several cubs looking for higher ground in advance of the storm.
There are at least four bears crawling around in the top of a tree in this man’s backyard in Asheville. Maybe they knew something that others did not.
“Big squirrels,” reads the caption on this video of a family of black bears doing their best to climb to safety in advance of the hurricane passing through western North Carolina. “Nothing like a little tree climbing in a hurricane,” he adds.
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The bears look like they are doing okay, even in the driving rain, but we understand if you are worried about the fate of these adorable furry critters. You wouldn’t be alone.
In the comments, one woman charged the man with watching over these bears. “Please keep checking on them,” she writes. “Make sure they stay safe.”
“And do what, exactly?” Someone else responds.
“And if they appear ‘not safe’, what exactly should they do? With the bears,” points out another.
This is a very good point. No matter how adorable they are, the bears are wild animals, not dogs he just just call down from the trees to take shelter in his living room.
But don’t worry—they weathered the storm just fine. In fact, in a later video posted by the same man on TikTok, you can see two of the cubs wrestling each other on the soggy ground in his yard.
We’re so glad that these bears are hanging in there, as so many were injured and even killed in the floods.
Can Animals Predict the Weather?
The bears in this video aren’t eh only ones who seemed to know that the inclement weather was about to get extremely dangerous. Satellite images of the path of the hurricane showed that migrating birds were also giving the area a wide berth. Studies indicate that birds can sense large changes in barometric pressure are sensed by birds. (Given that humans also report being able to sense these changes, this is not a big surprise.)
Honestly, one wonders why it would be a shock to anyone that a bird is not going to fly into a terrible storm.
Plenty of folklore and legends focus on the supposed ability of animals to “predict” natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and other situations. But really, it’s not so much as magical ability as basic observational skills. They live outside and don’t have cell phones. Of course they notice what is going on around them.
Bears and Climbing
Though all bears are capable of climbing trees, black bears are the North American species who are most skilled in the art of tree climbing. They can climb far and fast—if a bear is chasing you, a tree is not a good place to hide. In fact, black bears can climb one hundred feet up a tree in matter of thirty seconds.
And they picked a safer tree to climb, too—the white oak they chose has a sturdy trunk and a deep root system which would probably survive the high winds and flooding of the storm.
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