Mama Bear Goes Viral After Helping Cub Go Down Slide

A mama bear and her cub were spotted playing on the slides at an elementary school in North Carolina

Bears are adorable. Full stop. Today in, “Real bears acting like cartoon bears” news, a mama bear and her bear cub hit up an elementary school playground (after hours, of course, no children were harmed!) because just like humans, bears like playing around on the jungle gyms too.

In a video captured by a fifth-grade teacher from Ashville, North Carolina, two bears are seen GOING DOWN THE SLIDE on the playground. At first, the mama bear goes down the big slide, so her cub follows after her, but appears to be too scared to go down the big slide. So mama runs around and parks herself at the bottom of the smaller slide as her little bear goes careening down it, landing safely in his mom’s arms.

Then, it’s like the universe decided we deserved one good thing because then the two bears HUGGED EACH OTHER. Mom and child continued to roll around a bit on the ground, playing and wrestling, and just having a grand old time at bear recess. Again, real bears acting like cartoon bears. So wild.

“This MADE MY DAY,” the fifth-grade teacher Betsie Stockslager Emry, who spotted the bears, wrote alongside the Facebook video. “I LOVE how the mama goes down the big slide and quickly runs to the smaller slide — only to BEAR HUG the little one as they make it to the bottom.”

In the video, you can hear the teachers narrate the scene as they film. The teachers squeal and laugh at the adorable bears. Not surprisingly, the video has gone viral, because it’s not every day you see such playful wildlife.

Though apparently, at this particular school, bear sightings are common, they’re just not usually this comical.

The school — Isaac Dickson Elementary School — reposted the video, making sure to remind parents that “kiddos were safely inside at this time.”

“We’re in the mountains and bears are quite common on our campus,” Principal Brad Johnson told Today. “If someone spots a bear, we call a perimeter lockdown. That means that all students have to return to the building until it’s safe to resume outdoor activities.”

Johnson added that the students go into “bear lockdown” roughly three times a week, but joked that “this is the first time the bears have gone viral. So that’s been exciting.”

Thank you North Carolina for that little bear break. Now back to regularly scheduled programming.