bear plays in Florida backyard
ViralHog YouTube

Curious Bear Cub Caught Playing in Backyard Kiddie Pool

One of the joys of living on a property backing up to the woods is all the wildlife that inevitably comes traveling through. One Florida family, who witness a whole bevy of animals in their backyard, captured some footage that got picked up and shared on YouTube for all to see. The Wekiva River is just behind their Seminole County home, which is a National Wild and Scenic River. Due to their proximity, this family sees raccoons, deer, bobcats, coyotes, and even large bears roam their backyard. While they never interact with or feed the animals, they have learned that some of the more curious creatures like to investigate objects on the ground—so they installed some cameras to see what happens when humans are not around. The clip below proves that a bear cub loves to play just as much as a little kid.

The footage showed that this cub had passed by the camera earlier in the morning with his mom, and he decided the toys were too fun to pass up. He came back to play in the afternoon, and can be seen hopping onto the horse ball and rolling around with it on the ground. As he rolls back and forth, he gets distracted by some leaves in his fur. So young bears have short attention spans too, huh? And here I thought it was just human kids...

Please enable Javascript to view this content

After the play session comes a nice refreshing dip in the kiddie pool nearby, but it doesn't last long. The call of the ball is more enticing than sitting in the water, so the cub resumes his game. The little bear rolls here, there, and everywhere with the ball, pausing only to shake the water off his fur. He even tries to put the ball in the water at one point, but that plan doesn't work out. He rolls around some more, and eventually gets that big splash we were waiting for in the kiddie pool. The little cub continues to splash and play for a little while longer before sauntering off.

Think his mom knew what he was up to? If she did, she probably didn't approve.

READ MORE: Two Black Bears Duke it Out Over Kiddie Pool