Holiday traditions come in many forms. Family and friends cook elaborate feasts, people shop for the perfect gifts, and homeowners decorate their houses and yards. Not all of us feel the holiday spirit though, as one California neighborhood discovered. A local bear cub was feeling a little Grinch-y and decided to take his feelings out on a poor inflatable reindeer—and the entire encounter was caught on video.
Donna Hargett of Monrovia first posted the bear cub versus Christmas decoration video on Facebook back in 2021, but it still gets us every time. In it, a bear cub rears up on its hind legs, going for the jugular of a neighbor's inflatable decorative Christmas deer, easily twice the cub's size. Once the cub manages to wrestle the reindeer to the ground, he whips his head back and forth like a dog shaking a toy. Mama bear ambles into view, apparently observing her little one's first kill.
The cub then goes after Rudolph's rear end, slapping the reindeer on the butt before trying to take a bite out of his haunches. Obviously frustrated with his inability to kill the unkillable, the bear cub then goes wild, attacking any part of the reindeer he can reach.
Finally, exhausted, the cub heads back to mom. The two look over the cub's failure. The cub takes one last swat at the reindeer's antlers before the pair run off.
It turns out, the bears are a local fixture in the neighborhood. Hargett told CBS Los Angeles that the mother and cub pair are frequent visitors, coming down from the San Gabriel Mountains to check on things and, sometimes, wreak havoc. They've even broken into Hargett's home.
"Through the window one time," she said. There were scratches on the wall and one got up on the bed. There were paw prints [...] They're trouble."
While "bear cub versus Rudolph" may make for a cute video, bears who are this comfortable around humans often don't fare well. Once bears are accustomed to humans, or start seeking human food, they may be killed by wildlife authorities, especially if the bears break into homes. A Colorado bear was euthanized in June of this year after burgling three houses in Steamboat Springs.
Commenters on the video were torn between cheering on the bear cub or feeling a little sympathy for the reindeer. Gary Rose wrote, "They're pissed that it's Santa's eight tiny reindeer and not eight tiny bears!"
Whatever the reason for the attack, Rudolph appeared to survive the encounter, though he was undoubtedly a little slobbery afterward.
