The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services say that bears are omnivores who like to eat fish, berries, fruits and vegetables, insects, even human food when they find it (as anyone who has watched Yogi Bear and his love of pic-a-nic baskets knows). The bear experts don’t mention what bears will do with an iPhone, though. A man visiting the bears at Yancheng Wildlife Park accidentally found out.
The man was visiting the zoological park in China’s Jiangsu Province, sitting in a little car on a ride that took him over the bears’ enclosure. According to the video shared by CGTN on Facebook and YouTube, he was feeding the bears apples and carrots when he accidentally chucked his iPhone into the pen, too. The bears were intrigued by the new arrival, pawing at the phone, perhaps trying to determine whether it was food or to snap a selfie or to call for help. One clever bear picked up the phone with its mouth and walked away with it. The bears reportedly eventually gave up realizing it wasn’t a particularly tasty new treat and lacking the opposable thumbs necessary to play Candy Crush. When they got bored, the zoo staff were able to get into the cage and return the visitor’s phone to him.
