A Himalayan bear, apparently fed up with its pictures being taken by an automated camera in a Russian national park, ended up dismantling the rig and ripping out its memory card.
The Himalayan black bear was recorded by two camera traps in the “Land of the Leopard” national park in Russia’s Far East. It walked between them, seemingly undecided which one it liked more (or less). It then picked one, placed it on a tree trunk, and started messing with it, until the recording broke off.
The park staff were later able to retrace what happened. Being curious like most of its species, the Himalayan bear tried to rip the camera off the tree with its paws, and when that failed, tried to use its teeth. It happens once a while, the park’s website said.
This time, however, the bear turned out to be tech-savvy to boot. For the first time ever, it managed to partially eject the camera’s memory card with all the footage it had filmed. (Probably the bear wanted it to show the cubs for his home video collection.)