There is nothing like that sweet, juicy first bite of a ripe peach on a summer day. Even for bears.
The luscious fruit’s lure was seemingly so overpowering for one young black bear this week that it abandoned the wilderness and ventured through the sliding doors of an Alaskan commissary.
In a video widely circulated on social media, the hungry bear sauntered around the front section of the Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson’s Exchange, or JBER, shopping mall at 9:00 am before settling on a peach, savoring its ambrosial succulence and promptly leaving the building.
Maria Galvez, a spokesperson for the 673rd Air Base Wing, confirmed the unconventional shopper’s excursion, which was first reported by Task & Purpose, and said that “Conservation Law Enforcement officers were notified and arrived on scene to shoo the bear towards Ship Creek and deeper into the wood line.”
According to the post’s wildlife program manager, the bear was simply foraging in a non-aggressive manner.
Galvez said the base replaced all dumpsters with bear resistant variants in May and has since had fewer calls about wild animals.
Still, according to Conservation Law Enforcement Officer Marshall Hickman, seven bears had to be euthanized on JBER so far this year when they became habituated to human activity and thus posed a threat.
The video comes just months after two soldiers were injured by a bear during a land navigation exercise in a remote training area on the post.
A day after the incident, The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the encounter seemed “to be a defensive attack by a bear recently emerged from a den.”
In 2022, a soldier was attacked by a bear near the same base and subsequently died from his injuries.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.