We all took this clip as a boost of motivation, as the bear cubencourages us to embrace determination and persevere through our challenges. In this case, he quite literally has a mountain to climb. Whilst we all found it adorable, it turns out it's not as cute as we originally expected.
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As the video emerged and spread online, it wasn't long before animal behaviour experts, biologists and drone pilots alike had something to say about it. Unfortunately, here's the sad truth...
If you look closely at the video, you will see the mama-and-cub pairclimbing the mountain as the shot zooms in on the cub and his mother. The footage was filmed by a drone, which allows getting a closer look at theanimals. As they get to the top, the mother looks directly at the camera before hurriedly pushing a swarm of snow towards her cub, causing him to slide down just as the drone zooms in.
It turns out that the parent bear was incredibly distressed and felt threatened by the "attacking" drone which was nearing towards herself and her baby, thus she pushed him down to safety. Experts concluded that technological interference amongst wildlife's natural habitat has a detrimental effect on theanimals themselves.
Whilst it's not completely clear who originally shot the footage, we know thus far that it was filmed in the Magadan Region, north-eastern Russia. Whilst there was a cause for concern surrounding this video, professional wildlifefilmmakers always work alongside experts to ensure no animal is put at risk of any harm during filming.
