Watch bears crash party at Great Smoky Mountains resort. ‘They’re in the pool!’
A swim party took a wild turn when seven bears showed up at a Tennessee pool, video shows.
Parent Michelle Johnson said a high school group was having a celebration at a Smoky Mountains resort when bears took over the pool and tennis court.
Video posted to her YouTube page on Tuesday shows some of the animals wading in the water at Chalet Village, a vacation rental spot in the tourist town of Gatlinburg.
“They’re in the pool!” she said in the footage shared online.
The animals descended upon the pool over the weekend just as the Jefferson County High School JROTC was having a party to mark the end of the school year, Johnson told McClatchy News in a phone interview. The group was taking food out of a truck when they spotted the bears and moved out of the way.
“Right place at the right time I guess,” Johnson wrote on Facebook. “The guys at Chalet Village said they had never seen so many at one time.”
Video shows the bears walking along the pool deck and dipping their paws into the water. Meanwhile, another bear is seen climbing a fence to get into the tennis court, where others in the group are wandering.
Toward the end of the nearly three-minute video, two of the bears stand on their back legs and appear to wrestle one another. Johnson said the critters left after about 20 minutes.
“The bears went on down the other side of the mountain,” she said. “And we unloaded the truck and we fired up the grill and had our cookout and our pool party.
Johnson said the footage was captured at a safe distance from the pool and encouraged others to stay far from bears.
“Black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains are beautiful but please be respectful, keep your distance, and don’t feed them,” Johnson wrote on YouTube.
In Tennessee, black bears live along the state’s borders with Kentucky and North Carolina. The animals can weigh up to 600 pounds, according to wildlife experts.
While black bears tend to avoid humans, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency says people who encounter them should back away while throwing rocks or sticks so the animals will leave. To reduce your chances of a bear encounter, officials urge everyone to put trash in bear-proof containers and not leave pet food or bird feeders outside.
Johnson and Chalet Village didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ requests for comment on Thursday.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Watch bears crash party at Great Smoky Mountains resort. ‘They’re in the pool!’."
