KENORA, Ont. — When a black bear is hungry, it will go to extreme lengths to find food, even if it means ascending to precarious heights.
The evidence is in a video posted to the Facebook page of the Lake of the Woods District Stewardship Association.
Recorded on Lake of the Woods on the Victoria Day weekend, it shows a large bear standing on branches at the top of what's believed to be an ash tree, feasting on its budding leaves.
The video has captured tens of thousands of views.
The incident was filmed by a Kenora-area family who spotted the bear from their boat while they cruised by the island on Sunday, en route to their fishing spot.
"Bear acrobat at work...Couldn't believe our eyes...Once in a lifetime," family member Susan McLeod said in a message she posted on social media.
Diana Schwartz-Williams, executive director of the stewardship association, calls the video "amazing."
She said people who have seen bears in trees before have never witnessed one in such a precarious position.
"Someone referred to it as the bear Tarzan-ing around," Schwartz-Williams told Tbnewswatch.
She speculated that bears are finding nourishment harder to come by this spring because the season started late.
"If it ended up on the island, and there wasn't enough food for it...It's a big bear. They figure it's over a couple of hundred pounds. And to be balancing like that..." she said.
Schwartz-Williams said the family might have stayed near the island long enough to see the animal come down, but they decided to leave after noticing it was becoming agitated by their presence.
"They didn't want it to fall out of the tree, so they took off," she said.
