Black Sabbath Song Used to Spook Black Bear Away from Colorado Neighborhood
When face to face with a black bear, conventional wisdom dictates that you should make yourself look big and intimidating to frighten it. But what if it’s parked itself in a tree and you wanted to get it to leave your suburban neighborhood? Apparently the answer Colorado Parks and Wildlife rangers came up with was crank up a classic Black Sabbath song.
According to a report from Fox 8, the incident occurred in Golden, Colorado last week when residents witnessed a black bear rummaging through the trash. Animal control officials were called and once they got to the scene, they found the bear had parked himself in a tree and wasn’t coming down any time soon.
With both parties in a furry stand-off (but not that kind of furry stand-off), someone got the idea to blast Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” at the animal. The concept, according to officials, was to make the bear as uncomfortable as possible to get it to leave the quiet neighborhood — you know, like other people in authority do with other strangers of that color…
In a video of the incident, someone was heard saying that if the bear “starts banging his head, we’ve got a problem.” A+, no notes, that’s great comedic timing and awareness. Bravo.
Unfortunately, the idea didn’t work, as the bear just hung out in the tree until later that evening. Which goes to show that if a bear’s stuck in a tree, maybe you shouldn’t make coming down less appealing. Also, black bears apparently dig old school Black Sabbath, though we don’t know their feelings on Ronnie James Dio-era Sabbath.
