VIDEO: Kalispell Black Bear Knocks Down Tree To Get Delicious Grubs

If you've ever opened a Toblerone, you know that we mammals are more than willing to deal with difficult packaging to get to a sweet treat. It's no different in the bear world, either. Just the packaging is maybe a little more difficult, and the treat a little less sweet. At least to human tastes.

The video, recorded on a trail cam outside of Kalispell, shows a black bear approach a dead tree. He can probably smell the insects that would have taken up a home in the tree. Then he proceeds to hug it to death. 

Once he's knocked it over, he roots around at the bottom, eating delicious termites and grubs. If you don't like Toblerone, it might also be roughly equivalent to opening a kinder egg, but without the toy inside.  

You might wonder how a bear can maintain its weight on such meager vittles, but in fact insects are densely packed nuggets of protein. A bee, a particular favorite of bears, is about 80% protein, meaning that a mouthful of bees is a more efficient source of protein by far than, say, chicken, which is only 25% protein. The same goes for grubs.

I'm sure agree that once you get the packaging open and you finally get that bite of Toblerone (this is not branded content for Toblerone, but if they wanted to send 10 or 12 cases to Distincly Montana, c/o the editor, we wouldn't mail them back) you realize it was worth all the difficulty and stress of getting through their impenetrable packaging. The bear, once he gets his lips around a dozen or so of those grubs, must feel likewise.  

See the video below, and consider trying grubs for yourself -- they're a highly economical source of protein!