Watch: Black bear breaks into birthday picnic as terrified mother covers son's face

The bear gobbled down a taco and fries while Sylvia Macias covered her son's face. Photo: REUTERS

A Mexican family having a birthday picnic in a park was interrupted by a hungry black bear that jumped onto their table and began gobbling up their tacos.

In a video clip that went viral , Silvia Macias from Mexico City bravely covered her son's face after a bear discovered their party in Chipinque Park near Monterrey to celebrate the 15th birthday of her son Santiago, who has Down syndrome.

The bear jumped onto the table and devoured a family meal of fries, enchiladas, tacos and salsa, just inches from the boy's face.

The video, taken by her friend Angela Chapa, shows Ms Macias sitting stoically, holding Santiago and covering his eyes with her hand. She lowered her eyes to avoid anything the bear might consider a problem.

After eating, the bear jumped off the picnic table and headed back to the trees.

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A hungry bear appeared at the picnic .

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The video was posted online and was viewed more than 10 million times on the social network TikTok.

“The worst thing was that Santiago might get scared,” Ms. Macias recalled in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Santiago is very afraid of animals, a cat or a dog, any animal scares him very much.”

“So I closed his eyes because I didn’t want him to see it and scream or run. I was afraid that if he got scared or screamed or startled the bear, the bear would react,” she said.

Ms Macias said she and Ms Chapa had previously thought about the possibility of a bear encounter — they are known in Nuevo Leon Park, although bears usually come out at dawn or dusk rather than midday — and they came up with a plan

“We're going to play a game where we close Santiago's eyes and act like statues,” she remembers, rehearsing the plan.

And that's it. exactly what they did: Santiago remained motionless, although “the bear was very close to us, we heard him growl, how he ate, you could smell the bear. It was really, really close.”

Asked if he was scared, Santiago, who attends high school in Mexico City, replied: “Yes, a lot.”

Their resourceful friend Ms. Chapa, who filmed the scene, lives in Monterrey and knows , the correct behavior when encountering a black bear is to never run away.

She noticed a plate of enchiladas that the bear wasn't eating (the bear seemed to prefer French fries) and she tossed the enchilada away, revealing her animal. As expected, the animal followed the food and Ms. Chapa stood in front of the bear, shielding Ms. Macias and her son and allowing them to retreat quietly and slowly.

Eventually the bear left.

Santiago was replaced by tacos for his birthday, and everything ended well.

Ms. Macias says she doesn't consider herself a hero.

“I just think I'm a mother who was protecting her cub,” she said.

In 2020, another video from the park went viral after a black bear approached a visitor and sniffed her hair: