Together with a few guides, the mascot Buoy, a blue-haired sea troll, and Seattle player John Hayden were fishing, when the bear came walking out of the forest slope and down into the water.
The mascot, Hayden, and the rest of the group started moving away, whereupon the bear went after and then ran towards them. A few meters from the mascot Buoy, the bear stopped and started walking in the other direction.
The mascot may have been the trigger
”It's hard to determine from the short clip exactly why the bear acts as it does”, writes Aimee Tallian, researcher at Norway's Institute for Nature Research (Nina), in an email to TT.
”Either it's running after a fish simply, or it may have become a little defensive towards the mascot that it may not have perceived as human”, she continues.
Tallian describes the bear's behavior as ”pretty normal” and emphasizes that it wasn't an attack, possibly a marking from the bear's side.
”Their territory”
I blame Buoy, the bear seemed pretty interested in his look. We made it out but it was close, says Hayden on the club's social media.
The club's marketing manager, Melissa O'Brochta, saw the entire sequence of events from the beach, but was never worried about the bear.
This is their territory. They're also very used to seeing people, so I wasn't scared, she says.
Seattle travels annually to Alaska to promote ice hockey for young people, as the state doesn't have its own NHL team.
