BC bear caught on tape opening car door and climbing inside (VIDEO)

Locking your car doors helps prevents thefts, but it will also stop bears from entering your vehicle.

That’s the lesson a Metro Vancouver woman learned after discovering that a bear had opened her car door and climbed inside.

A video of the incident was posted onto Facebook by Arthur Murray Dance Studio Coquitlam

“Our student Terry was house-sitting in Anmore this past week and this was some startling surveillance video from in front of the house,” wrote the studio. “You have to watch this, we had no idea bears could do this and apparently did the same thing on the other side of the car.”

The footage shows the bear approaching a red vehicle and standing up to open the driver’s side door. It peers inside, then climbs in — most likely searching for food. It then climbs out and walks to the other side of the vehicle.

There have been multiple black bear sightings in the Metro Vancouver area this summer.

A list of bear safety tips and advice is available on WildSafeBC’s website.

If you want to know about the bear activity in a park before you go, use this interactive map, courtesy of the British Columbia Conservation Foundation, (BCCF).

The maps give people an idea of where a bear encounter could potentially take place – and take the necessary precautions as a result. Search results can also be filtered by date, location, species, attractants, the type of encounter, the outcome, and the group/agency.

See also:

• The number of BC black bears destroyed has nearly doubled since last year 
• Conservation Officer Service destroys black bear family, arrests 3 Coquitlam residents 
• Opinion: Enough is enough, stop killing bears