A Sweet Story About a Bear Rescuing Injured Animals Turn Out to Be Fabricated
Animal lovers may have caught wind of a wonderfully surprising story about a black bear that has been rescuing wounded animals and bringing them to a wildlife rehabilitation center. The charming tale even came along with photos that seemed to show the bear caring for the critters.
The account of what happened was posted on Facebook by Jayven DeLuca, who said that the images had been captured by a nearby security camera. “The first time, nobody believed it,” he captioned the pictures, adding that employees had considered it a weird coincidence until it happened again a few weeks later.
While it was odd that the bear would drop off what could normally be considered prey, what was even stranger was DeLuca’s claim that the bear knew to bring the animals to the wildlife center because he had once been treated there before.
Typically, when a story sounds too good to be true, it usually is, which is what Snopes eventually decided after looking into the post, as well as the other different accounts that also shared the images. That being said, the more surprising part of this tall tale may be the way people responded to it in the post, including those who immediately spotted it as a fake, as well as those who shared their own similar stories.
The Post Claimed the Bear Remembered Being Healed at the Wildlife Center
The lengthy post justified the odd animal encounter by saying that employees were able to identify the bear in the security video. “Years earlier, the same bear had been rescued, treated at that very wildlife center, and released back into the wild,” the caption read. “He had been a patient there. And now he was bringing patients back.”
However, when Snopes looked into the September 2026 post, the fact-checking site ultimately decided it was fake. That’s because it was unable to find any corroborating reporting on the story, which you would definitely expect to see if it had been real. Additionally, the website said it was unable to verify the wildlife center’s existence, even when the images were reverse-searched through Google.
People Were Suspicious Even Without the Fact-Checking
Just days after it was posted on DeLuca’s account, the story had received thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments. Most of the responses from people were skeptical, with many suggesting that the images and story were both generated using artificial intelligence (AI).
“It is not easy to tell at first, but it is AI. The bear is exactly the same in both pictures. The raccoon and fox are in the exact same position with a different overlay,” one person wrote.
Then there were others who were desperate to believe because they wanted to see the humanity in the creature. “It is sweet, and I believe that’s very possible. Animals know,” another person wrote.
One Woman Says Her Cat Did Something Similar
It may be disappointing that this story was deemed fake, but according to ABC News, there are real-life stories about animals helping others, like the goose that was credited with saving his human family (and his feathered family) from a barn fire in Texas by alerting them to the blaze. Then there are stories like the one out of Arizona where NBC News says a missing 2-year-old boy was led to safety by a rancher’s dog, seven miles from where the child first went missing.
While they may not be as magical and unbelievable as the bear story, they are actually true, which makes them even more enjoyable to learn about.
