Mother goes viral on TikTok after grabbing toddler chasing a black bear: 'I just panicked'
A mother in Washington has gone viral after a video showed her grabbing her toddler who was chasing a black bear in their back yard.
The ordeal was caught on home security cameras and posted to TikTok where it has more than 3 million views.
In the video, a small black bear is seen running along the cement wall in the Redmond back yard. The toddler sees the bear and proceeds to chase after it.
"That's a bear!" the girl screams as she runs towards the animal.
Juniper's mother, Samantha Martin, told Fox 13 she "panicked" and ran to grab Juniper and bring her back inside.
"It was just a little baby bear, but my biggest concern wasn’t necessarily the baby bear so much as I didn’t know where the mom was and didn’t know how she’d feel about two humans running towards her baby," she told the outlet.
Martin believes Juniper wanted to see the bear after learning from an animal identification book and bears becoming her favorite.
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As for the baby bear, Martin told FOX 13 it ran away after eating seeds from her now-destroyed bird feeder that she doesn't plan to fix.
"I love birds, but I also don’t want bears to continuously come into the yard, so I’m not putting the bird seed back up," Martin told the outlet.
According to the U.S. National Park Service, if you encounter a bear you should remain still, stand your ground and slowly wave your arms so the bear can recognize you as a human.
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Follow reporter Asha Gilbert @Coastalasha. Email: agilbert@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mom in Washington goes viral after grabbing toddler chasing black bear
