One of the strangest exhibit sights I ever encountered at a zoo was at the Naples Zoo in 2018. I rounded a corner, looked through a window, and saw an American black bear... sitting at a picnic table. And I don't mean sitting on it, or by it - he was sitting in it so snugly that you might have thought he was a keeper in a bear suit. It looks for all the world like he was about to look over his shoulder and call for his wife to grab him another burger while she was up. I was so mad when I missed getting the picture, but I was just to surprised at first to get my camera out.
That exhibit, of course, was meant to provide an educational display about backyard black bears, and how zoos could work to reduce the human-bear conflict in south Florida (not leaving food out, bear-proof trashcans, etc). It looks like Oakland Zoo took that educational message and ran with it in this new video. Countless tourists pass through northern California every year on their way to Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and other park and recreational areas. Some of them have never shared a landscape with bears before, and don't necessarily make the best decisions.
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