A Southern California family caught a bear stealing a piece of watermelon from the refrigerator in their garage on Sunday.
Chris Yee took a video of the the incident, which shows the bear opening the doors and rummaging through the fridge for a snack, Fox 9 reported.
“Dad, it opened the freezer! Dad, it’s like in the freezer, it’s open,” Yee’s daughter can be heard saying in the video.
The garage door begins closing about halfway through the video, which prompts the bear to run out into the driveway, tripping the garage door’s motion sensor in the process and causing it to return to the open position. The bear then re-enters the garage to continue its search for a treat.
Another clip shows the bear lying in the yard, chowing down on a slice of watermelon from the fridge.
“The bear plucked out of the refrigerator a third of a watermelon that was sliced and then proceeded to walk to our front yard to sit and eat it,” Yee told Fox 9.
“It seemed like it really just, you know, with its mouth, took that quarter piece of watermelon out without disturbing anything else, thankfully,” he told ABC7.
The bear reportedly left soon after, Fox 9 noted. (RELATED: Video Shows Bear Stealing Gummy Bears From Gas Station, Leaving Without Paying).
Bear home invasions are rare but not unheard of, with Connecticut reporting a record-high 67 in 2022.
In Oct. 2023, a bear broke into a family’s home in Connecticut and stole lasagna from the freezer, according to CT Insider. The homeowners reportedly caught the thief with their Ring surveillance camera.
The bear left a “mess” behind after staying in the home for about half an hour, CNN affiliate WFSB reported. The animal can be seen in the video climbing onto the freezer, leaving through the kitchen window, and taking the meal to go.
“If there is a bear in your house prop open all doors to the outside and get out of the way of the exit,” Virginia’s Department of Wildlife Resources advises. “Never close a bear into a room. Make noises and yell at bear to leave the house. Don’t approach the bear but make sure it knows it is violating your territory.”
