I can't stop watching bear videos

At least once a day, I take a break from emails and projects and task lists to open a fresh tab on my work computer and Google one of the following search terms: “brown bears,” “black bears,” “baby brown bears,” “sloth bears,” “polar bears,” “panda bears,” “sun bears,” “Andean bears,” or “moon bears.” The internet abounds with short videos of bears going about their daily lives — chasing moose in Montana, emerging from hibernation in the high arctic, digging for clams in Alaska, scaring off tigers in India, claiming crawl spaces in California, sharing hiking trails with humans, invading supermarkets in Japan, bumbling around sanctuaries, and more — and I can’t get enough. I can’t share enough, either. 

“I’m spreading the gospel of bear,” I joked to my brother recently. We were discussing our jobs, and I told him I’d become so well known by my coworkers as someone who loves bears — and loves to share bear videos — that during the holidays I walked into the office to find an assortment of chocolate bears on my desk. A little while after that, a coworker gifted me an exquisitely detailed sketch he’d drawn of a mother grizzly bear and her cub. It’s framed and on display in my home, and every day I spend time staring at it.  

I could blame my bear obsession on Tooth & Claw, an animal attack podcast I’ve followed religiously since my brother introduced it to me a few years ago, but I know it’s about more than that. I’ve had a deep fascination with large predators since Jurassic Park hit theaters in 1993, and I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember — but it’s about more than that, too. I’m an intensely curious, former journalist who enjoys research and whose neurodivergence demands fixation from time to time, but I know it’s about more than even that. 

Despite their inherent power and their enviable spot on nature’s food chain, bears are not fearless. North American black bears are easily frightened — there are videos of them being scared away from homes by house cats. Most brown bear attacks on humans are defensive attacks; brown bears rarely attack humans unless they feel threatened by our presence or they feel their cubs are threatened by our presence. Even in places like Japan and India, where bears tend to be much more aggressive than the bears found in North America and Europe, it could be argued that those Asian bears — due to evolving alongside other large predators and living closer to humans than most North American and European bears — are acting out of an instinctive defensiveness much of the time. 

No, bears are not fearless, and they shouldn’t be. Between climate change, habitat loss, bear hunting, bear bile farming, dancing bear acts, and other human-led cruelties — not to mention the potential violence they face from each other and other animals — bears have plenty to fear. Yet, as a species, they’re incredibly resilient. 

I live in Missouri, where black bears were once considered to be extirpated due largely to extensive logging in the state. Now, they appear to be thriving. “Be Bear Aware” warnings are posted all over local campgrounds, and videos of black bears in Missouri yards aren’t hard to find. Although bear bile farming was outlawed in Vietnam in 2005, a person could spend an afternoon watching YouTube videos of recently rescued moon bears experiencing the outdoors after a lifetime of pain and confinement. 

I’m not more fearless than bears. If anything, I’m much more fearful. I’m afraid of losing my job, no matter how hard I work to keep it. I’m afraid of what my next cancer screening might discover, no matter how diligently I try to take care of my health. I worry about my aging parents and my developing nieces. I worry about the wars men start and the economies they tank. I’m scared I may never fully heal from the abuse I’ve suffered, and sometimes I’m afraid I may never again fall in love with someone who will love me back. 

Yet, like the bears I watch on the internet, I’m also incredibly resilient. I may never be fearless, and I may always be damaged; but like those bears, I’m also surviving, moving forward, and trying to thrive. Perhaps, on some level, bear videos remind me of my own strength. Perhaps they remind me that every living thing is just trying to survive, and if we’re lucky, thriving is what happens along the way.