If you had to choose a victor in a water battle, black bear or alligator, which species would you choose? A Florida man kayaking on the St. Johns River didn’t know what to think when he suddenly saw a big black animal swimming nearby, then saw an alligator heading right toward it.
Tyler Futrell grabbed for his phone and started recording as the two animals met mid-river. The big black animal—Futrell later realized it was a black bear—swatted at the gator when it lunged, as if the gator were an annoying fly. Then, the black bear keeps on swimming as Futrell drops multiple expletives.
Before the bear could finish crossing the river, it runs into another gator, but this one can’t slow the bear down either. Futrell told local news in an interview that he’d never seen a black bear in the river, and he’d certainly never seen a black bear go up against an alligator while swimming. Yet, on this fateful day, he saw one go up against two.
Watch a black bear face off against two alligators in a river here (warning: this video contains explicit language):
While alligators are the apex predators in Florida’s freshwater, black bears can swim well too, and they aren’t easy to take down, even if you’re a gator. These gators certainly learned their lesson: Don’t even try.