Bearjacking! Sandwich-seeking Ursus americanus invades car, drives it, honks horn, poops, flips out

And this, friends, is why we do not leave sandwiches in our cars. 17-year-old Ben Story of Larkspur, Colorado, left a peanut butter and jelly in his Toyota one night, and forgot to lock up. A few hours after he crawled off to bed, his parents and neighbors woke up to the sound of a car horn honking—for 45 minutes straight. 'Twas a panicking bear trapped inside the vehicle.

Ben's father, Ralph, said the bear hit the shifter and the car rolled backward about 125 feet, off the driveway, down an embankment and into some trees on Eagle Road near Tenderfoot Drive. "So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park," Ralph said. "It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It's like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn." Ben told 7NEWS he had left a sandwich in the car and that may have attracted the big bear.
"It was a pretty good size, actually it was pretty big. If you look at the inside of the car, there's nothing left at all. You could see it moving around, it like took up the entire inside of the car," said Ben. (...) The bear appeared "freaked out" about being trapped in the four-door Toyota sedan and totally shredded the inside, Ben said.

If the bear's a-rockin', don't come knockin'. Sheriffs eventually managed to open the car door with a rope so the poor feller could get out. He lumbered back into the woods, presumably seeking a glass of milk with which to chase the pilfered PBJ. Before his exit, he thoughtfully left a "gift" for the car's owner in the back seat.

KMGH Denver, Denver Post, Fox, San Jose Mercury News, CNN.

(Photograph courtesy Story family / Pedobear courtesy Pedobear)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Felan

Total Enviro-Bear 2000 rip-off:

http://www.enviro-bear.com/
Avram / Moderator

I’ll be disappointed if this doesn’t turn up on The Colbert Report.
- Diamond Jim
  
  Yes, this has so got to be #1 on the Threat Down!
social_maladroit

Wonder if his insurance policy covers situations like this.
- http://www.xeni.net Xeni Jardin
  
  The reports I linked to stated that yes, they’re getting full coverage. And the car is a total loss.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    A total loss? Hell, I’ve paid good money for cars worse than that! Granted, they were made by British Leyland, so a Toyota that had been shredded then shat in by a bear would be a step up, but still…
    - 3eff_jeff
      
      British Leyland, eh? So was it brand new or not running at all?
    - Anonymous
      
      As a former Rover 2000 owner, I can tell you that you are spot on. That car had one interesting characteristic, in that, regardless of which part you wanted to work on, you had to remove another part first that was in the way.
Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, Toyota, it’s all the bear’s fault. Nothing wrong with the car. Nothing at all.
Anonymous

Jesus Christ it’s a bear in the car! Get the camera!
foobar

Who is driving? Bear is driving!
Nadreck

Smarter then the average bear!
Nadreck

Bear eats poops, and leaves.
grimc

Pedobear doesn’t take PBJ sandwiches. He offers them when he runs out of candy.
Alenonimo

Why is the pedobear on the article? There’s no mention of children.
- Xeni Jardin
  
  17-year old boy = children
  
  Plus, more in the house, even younger!
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    What is the world coming to when we have to provide a rationale for Pedobear?
    - D2S
      
      cuz our country turned into the red tape hell from the movie Brazil…
  - lionelbrits
    
    Xeni I think your account has been hacked by /b/. Better change your password!
  - kleer001
    
    There’s 17 of them? Damn.
Anonymous

INSERT: Redundant jokes about Toyota.(I apologize for not readin the comments already posted)
Anonymous

I wonder if “Bear Attacks” are covered under his insurance?
Anonymous

A runaway Toyota in reverse! Toyota just put a bear in there with photoshop to get better publicity.
Anonymous

I smell another toyota recall bruin.
- General Specific
  
  Bravo!
- mdh
  
  FTW
bitman362

Carjacking = Jack a car.
Bearjacking = Jack a bear.

Who jacked the bear?
- Felton
  
  I’d say the bear jacked the car, then the car jacked the bear.
- Rezorrand
  
  Antilopejacking = Jackalope?
Chris Tucker

“Yogi, Mr. Ranger isn’t going to like this.”
godisafiction

Looks like the bear broke into the car to rip off the stereo. Looks like the other two he got that night are sitting on the dash board in front of him.
Anonymous

This bear is clearly qualified for a driver’s license, he drives better than some people I’ve seen.
Anonymous

Are we sure it wasn’t just an Enviro Bear 2000 LARPer?
semiotix

My favorite part of this story is that they have about 20 “related story” links going back only to May 2009 of other things that bears have trashed, including three other cars.

BEARS: ARE THEY ECO-TERRORISTS?
ROSSINDETROIT

Poor bear! Just wanted a sandwich and got trapped!
dragonet2

Same thing happened to a girlfriend who lives in the Grand Lake area of Colorado. Her moon roof broke, her hubby helpfully taped a black plastic bag over the hole because it had been raining.

Bear saw black trash bag thing and went, “Bag = food.” and fell into her car. It proceeded to panic and trash the interior. When it finally came to its senses it went “oh, that is how I fell in!” and proceeded to climb back out through the moon roof.

That act put the coup de grace on the car. Pushed the roof down a couple of inches, plus crushed the moon roof tracks together.

Insurance agent finally put the cause as ‘vandalism.’ Because there was no category for animal damage.

And she didn’t leave ANYTHING in the car that has an odor. Bears can be motivated to rip into cars for just about anything that smells strongly, even if it isn’t food.
- Anonymous
  
  When I read “same thing happened to a girlfriend”, I immediately pictured your hungry girlfriend breaking into your Toyota for a pb&j sandwich, getting trapped, and then devastating the car interior. And taking a bear-sized dump on the seat.
piminnowcheez

Granted, it’s probably mostly because of the word “poops” meeting the still-thriving 13-year-old-boy in me, but I can’t read the headline to this post without giggling.

Trying to imagine the ursine equivalent of “omg wtf!?” that must have been going through the bear’s head only makes matters worse.
- Rich Keller
  
  The bear version would be ÐŸÑ€ÐµÐ²ÐµÌÐ´.
headcode

Whether or not the car was left unlocked has no “bearing” on the matter. When a bear really wants to get into a car it just peels the door frame open like a tin lid on a can of sardines. I’m very, very surprised that the bear could not easily exit, as they are known to just punch through a car window as if it was cellophane.
Anonymous

That is just like that Mercury Insurance commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1J7KD6vKNg
Trotsky

Some people will do anything to drive in the HOV lane.
Trotsky

GTA: Yellowstone.
skabob

I’m B.J. McKay and this is my best friend, Bear!

also, “eats, poops, and leaves”, not “eats poops, and leaves”, that would be my dog.

AND… Larkspur is home to a Renaissance Festival, so cloudy with a chance of LARP’ers.
Carl Rigney

Not quite a re-enactment of my favorite Far Side bear cartoon: “Think about it Murray. …if we could get this baby runnin’, we could run over hikers, pick up females, chase down mule deer– man, we’d be the grizzlies from hell.”
Trotsky

If you got beef to settle, it’s almost always a bad idea to send a bear out on a drive-by.

Racoons? Sure. Those mu-fuhs are stone cold killers. But if you send a bear out, he will ALWAYS find a way to fuck it up. And he will snitch you out to the po-po to cop a deal. Guaranteed. That’s some hard won ghetto wisdom right there.

Apparently, the criminal element in Colorado is a little slower than most. They’ll learn though.
Trotsky

Ben Story was one raccoon away from getting his ticket punched. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Get me Winston Wolfe.

The only person who fucks Marcellus Wallace is Mrs. Wallace, Ben.
Anonymous

Hang on a second here, “Ursus americ-…ANUS???!!” Are you callin’ mah country a assh*le?
voiceinthedistance

Obviously a savvy urban bear. Notice how he already had the radio and CD player pulled and ready to take to his fence? The sandwich was only a pretense.
Jack

I thought this was the saddest/funniest animal story I read today. Then I read this sad tale of a mama raccoon rummaging through a Brooklyn kitchen for food for it’s baby. It sadhorrifyinglarious!
Felton

This could be viral marketing for Disney’s upcoming Country Bears reboot, featuring more realistic CGI bears, and directed by Michael Bay.
Anonymous

Believe it or not I once had a similar experience, except the bear was sleeping in the back seat when I got in the car (a ’57 Pontiac Chieftan) and woke up when I started the car. It panicked and got halfway into the front seat. I had the car in reverse by then and inadvertently floored it. We flew backwards across the road, propelling the bear the rest of the way into the front seat. The car went into a ditch, tearing out the gas tank. I got out of there and the bear did likewise. I was lucky to escape without being bit or clawed.
Trotsky

That’s not Pedo Bear. That’s 100% Enviro Bear from the greatest goddamn game ever to grace any game system ever.
Anonymous

What a sad story. There’s only losers here: the bear, the kid, his father and the car. Luckily no one was hurt.
ROSSINDETROIT

The worst outcome of this might be explaining the new car. How many times would you want to tell The Bear Story?
Anonymous

The car couldn’t bear the attack.
ackpht

Does a bear poop in the woods? Not if there’s a Toyota handy…
notjackobrien

Who is driving? Bear is driving how can that be!?
serfer0

It’s peanut butta jelly tiiiiime!!
moniker42

So we see that the old adage does not always prove true, the bear does not always shit in the woods after all!
- mdh
  
  However, he did drive into the woods.
Cynical

I can only assume that the insurance company refused to pay out and the owners were left with no choice but to grin and bear it.

…I’ll get my coat.
- Felton
  
  They usually only pay the bear minimum anyway.
nanuq

There’s nothing sadder than when a bear goes bad and becomes a car thief. I blame the parents.
pauldrye

That second picture is all wrong. Obviously a pedo-bear would walk.
- Xeni Jardin
  
  Not so, grasshopper. But Pedobear would probably go for the Molester Van, not so much a sedan. Either way, I’m not sure it was SANDWICHES he was after. IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN.
bcsizemo

I’d probably poop my pants too if I punched the steering wheel and the air bag deployed….