Minnesota Non-Profit Shows Off Ridiculous Outfit They Wear to Feed the Bears
Minnesota non-profit, Wild and Free, is an organization that rescues and rehabilitates orphaned and injured wildlife. That wildlife includes bears and recently on their Facebook page, Wild and Free showed off the ridiculous outfit they have to wear to feed the bears in their care.
The outfit looks hilarious. It looks like a white floral bedsheet that they wear over their torso and legs, thick gloves, a hat, face mask, and it kind of looks like a beekeeper hat, or at least the netting from it.
Take a look at this goofy looking getup:
My first thought was they had to wear this in order to disguise themselves to protect themselves from the bears, so the bears don't come to attack them. That's partially true. It is worn as a disguise but it's so the bears don't connect humans with food. They don't want the bears to know that the food their getting is coming from a human.
This makes so much sense! In the Facebook post, they don't explain why they don't want the bears to connect food and humans together but I can guess as to why. If you're out camping you already have to be careful about where you keep your food because of the risk of bears coming into your camp to eat it (and possibly you). Then if you have bears that connect food to humans, that's a recipe for disaster.
I also wonder if another reason they don't want the bears to know the food comes from humans is because they don't want the bears to become reliant on humans. The ultimate goal of rehabilitation centers is to release the animal back in the wild. Well, if the animal relies on humans for food they won't go out and get their food on their own and then they're screwed.