National Park Service
The people who oversee America’s national parks tend to avoid interacting with the wild animals that roam those preserves. However, rangers at the protected area in the Great Smoky Mountains made an exception while harnessing a backhoe to save a bear that got stuck on a ledge near a busy road.
People who visit America’s national parks are subjected to plenty of signs reminding them not to get up close and personal with the wildlife they’re home to. Those warnings are primarily designed to prevent them from being injured, but they’re also employed to ensure those animals don’t get overly comfortable with humans.
Those rules generally extend to the park rangers who usually allow nature to take its course as opposed to interfering in situations that would require them to interact with fauna in the areas they oversee, but there are some exceptions to that rule.
That includes a rescue operation that recently transpired at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which involved a backhoe being deployed to assist a bear in need.
Rangers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park used a backhoe to save a bear
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an approximately 815-square-mile expanse located on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. It boasts a wide variety of wild animals, including close to 250 species of birds in addition to elk, bobcats, otters, and black bears.
One of those black bears was making its way across Laurel Creek Road in October when it ended up on the side of a cliff overlooking the street, which drew the attention of a number of onlookers who stopped their cars and created what was referred to as a “bear jam” in a Facebook post chronicling what transpired after the situation came to the attention of officials in the park.
Police, park rangers, and biologists were among the responders who arrived at the scene before the animal was hit with a tranquilizer that allowed rescuers to rappel down the face of the ridge where it had gotten stuck and deposit the sleeping bear in the bucket of a backhoe that was used to safely transport it back to level ground.
The bear was released back into the wild unharmed after waking up, and rangers used the incident as an excuse to remind visitors not to stop and gawk when they’re driving through the park.