In This Matchup Between a Bear and a Trash Can, the Can Won
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Karin Braun heard the crash while she was outside staining her front deck in Girdwood. It was July 22, around 10 p.m., in the late-night sunshine of Alaska summer.
Near the end of her driveway, Braun said, she saw a bear flipping over her neighbor’s bear-resistant trash can. Braun grabbed the cellphone from her pocket and started recording.
“He worked on trying to get in there for a little while,” she said.
Braun recorded as the bear rolled the trash can, stood on it and eventually dragged it into the trees. Still, the trash can prevailed.
Braun posted the video on her Facebook account late July 22. By Thursday, it had been viewed 22,000 times. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game also picked up Braun’s video and used it in a Facebook post.
Ken Marsh, a Fish and Game spokesman, said the bear in the video appeared to be a young brown bear. The video, he said, “really does demonstrate how a bear-resistant can can prevent a bear from getting into trash.”