Dominic Smithers
A teacher was forced to take decisive action after he spotted a bear creeping around his school.
Tristan Clausen is a music teacher at St. John’s Academy in Shawnigan Lake, Canada, and was shocked when he looked out his window and saw the animal prowling along the school wall on 27 May. Have a look for yourself:
In a video posted online, the black bear can be seen sniffing around what appear to be the bins.
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Watching on, a classroom full of children heard talking excitedly about the creature, with one child saying they would like to go and stroke it.
However, putting that notion quickly to bed, their teacher, Makayla Mitchell, who filmed the encounter, says: "It would literally kill you."
Which is about all the warning most people should probably need.
Seemingly unfazed by the attention, though, the bear continues to have a good old sniff around, even as people begin banging on the windows to scare it away.
It's only when Tristan whips out his trombone, giving it a good old toot, that the animal becomes a bit startled, and makes a run for it.
Sharing the footage on Facebook, Tristan wrote: "Rural teaching: I just chased a bear away with a trombone."
Commenting on his post, one user joked: "That may just mean your trombone playing is kind of scary," while another added: "Trying to gain some street cred with the students eh?"
That's the kind of thanks you get for being a hero these days.
But it's not just Tristan who stood up to be counted when faced with one of these powerful creatures recently.
Earlier this year, Samantha Martin raced to the rescue after a bear made its way into the garden of her home in Redmond, Seattle.
Security footage captured the moment her toddler, Juniper, trundled out into the garden and towards the bear, looking for a hug.
In the short clip, Samantha can be seen chasing after and only just saving her from the bear's clutches.
"Juniper, come back inside," the worried mum can be heard shouting as she goes after her little girl. "That's a bear!"
Speaking to Fox13 about the terrifying encounter, Samantha said: "It started running across the fence and she chased it.
"I just panicked. I didn’t really have a lot of thoughts in the moment so much as get the child and get back inside," she said.
She told the outlet that while the cub ran away, she was far more worried about its mother.
She added: "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."
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