Watch: Bear pulls off classy recovery after toppling from broken branch
While visiting the San Diego Zoo this week I was drawn to a crowd that had gathered in front of the Andean bear exhibit. Directly in front of the crowd was a bear on a high branch, bouncing as if to test the limb’s strength.
“He’s going to break it. He’s going to fall,” kids next to me predicted.
Sure enough, after a few bounces, the limb snapped and the bear toppled, only to execute an acrobatic save to end up standing on its hind legs, nonchalantly, as if nothing embarrassing had happened.
The bear had done this before, I was told by another visitor, so perhaps snapping branches is its way of showing off.
Andean bears, also known as spectacled bears, are the only bears native to South America.
In the wild, they build nests and platforms in trees, similar to the structure constructed in the zoo’s exhibit.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: San Diego Zoo bear is nonchalant after spectacular fall
