Two Men Take Bear Cub on Road Trip, Feed It Taco Bell

Which you probably shouldn't be doing 'for so many reasons,' notes wildlife rescue official
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 5, 2024 11:21 AM CDT
They Took Bear Cub on 10-Hour Drive, Fed It Taco Bell
Stock photo of a black bear cub.   (Getty Images/AnnaSalling)

Two men in northern Ontario picked up a highly unusual passenger and took it on a road trip, complete with Taco Bell to scarf down. The problem? That passenger was a black bear cub. According to Myriam Armstrong of the Pet and Wildlife Rescue center in Chatham-Kent, her group took in the juvenile bear over the weekend after it was discovered in the back of a van in Windsor, per the Canadian Press. "There are some pretty strict rules on keeping wildlife. You are not able to keep wildlife captive for so many reasons," Armstrong tells CTV News. "Just common sense to start, you know, they're wild animals, so leave them in the wild, and a bear, obviously, there is some risk associated with housing a bear."

Armstrong says the two men had found the bear in Cochrane, about 10 hours north, and pulled it into their vehicle. She notes the pair fed the bear tacos from Taco Bell during their ride, and that when they arrived in Windsor, local police got wind of their furry passenger. "I'm sure his innards weren't feeling so great," she says. Armstrong adds that the 4-month-old bear cub didn't have any visible injuries, but it was lethargic and stressed from the van ride, and frightened.

"He was just a little bit off," she tells the Canadian Press. "So we just made sure to give him lots of space and a dark place to decompress." A bear rescue group in Huntsville came to take the bear into its custody. Apparently, ursine eaters enjoy making their runs to the border: In November, a black bear swiped a nearly $50 Taco Bell order from a Florida family's front porch after it was delivered by Uber Eats. "He came, and he grabbed the food—then he came again for the soda," a niece of the homeowners told FOX 35 at the time. (More strange stuff stories.)

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