WRANGELL, Alaska, Oct. 1 (UPI) — A woman on a kayaking trip in Alaska took video of a bear chewing up her kayak while she shouted at it and demanded to know its motives.
Mary Maley posted a video to YouTube showing the black bear gnawing on her kayak while she filmed it from a distance during a solo kayak trip from Ketchikan to Petersburg.
Maley said the bear-on-boat attack took place outside of a U.S. Forest Service cabin in Berg Bay, where she had stored her tent, food and gear to go on a hike.
“I’m going to pepper spray you in the face! That’s what I’m going to do to you,” Maley says at the start of the video, which she said began about five minutes into the bear encounter.
Maley sprays the bear and it jumps backward, returning its attention to the kayak. “Go away! No, get away from the kayak!” Maley shouts. “Get away from that kayak! Come here! Come on! Stop it, bear!”
Maley chides the bear as it starts to gnaw on her kayak.
“Why are you breaking my kayak? What am I going to do?” she asks.
The woman begs the bear to stop chewing on her boat and asks why the bear isn’t hibernating.
“It’s the end of September, why are you here? You’re supposed to be asleep!” she says.
Maley tells the bear that her kayak is “not even food, it’s plastic” and begs it to “please stop” before ending the video.
She wrote in the video’s description that the bear’s attack on her kayak continued for another five to 10 minutes after the video ended. She said she was able to swim out to a boat anchored nearby and got a ride to Wrangell with her belongings and her injured kayak.
