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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Outdoors blog

Video: Asian bear chases snowboarder: Real or fake?

On April 10, 2016, a video purportedly showing a young woman on snowboard oblivious to being chased by a bear was posted to YouTube by user Kelly Murphy, along with the claim that it was taken at Hakuba47 Winter Sports Park in Japan:
On April 10, 2016, a video purportedly showing a young woman on snowboard oblivious to being chased by a bear was posted to YouTube by user Kelly Murphy, along with the claim that it was taken at Hakuba47 Winter Sports Park in Japan:

WILDLIFE -- While snowboarding in Japan with a Go-Pro on a selfie stick, and Australian gal says she was oblivious to an Asian bear romping behind her for a way down the slope.

Kelly Murphy,19, posted the footage to YouTube on Sunday and gave an interview to her home-country reporters on Australia's 9 News in Sydney. Asian bears exist in the area.

On YouTube, Murphy says:

"OMG! I was going through my snowboarding videos and I found a bear chasing me!!! I nearly got eaten!!!
This was at Hakuba 47 in Japan, filmed yesterday! Be careful people!!!

There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical. Snopes says the footage appears to include computer generation images of the bear. 

But I'll just say this is well done if it's a fake.

 



Outdoors blog

Rich Landers writes and photographs stories and columns for a wide range of outdoors coverage, including Outdoors feature sections on Sunday and Thursday.




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