A Whole Bunch Of Bears Crashed A High School Pool Party

A high school pool party in Tennessee last weekend got a lot wilder after a crew of black bears showed up.

“The [Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] swim party had a few visitors...7 bears,” wrote Michelle Johnson on her now viral YouTube video. “We were safely outside the pool area.”

The video shows the bears exploring an outdoor area at Chalet Village in Gatlinburg. They splash around in three different pools, stroll across the adjacent tennis court, and at one point, two of them engage in a bit of roughhousing. (Local news channel WBIR noted that those bears “obviously didn’t read the pool rules about not horsing around.”)

Johnson noted on YouTube that black bears are common in the Great Smoky Mountains and urged humans to be “be respectful, keep your distance, and don’t feed them.” (Excellent advice.)

When the weather starts getting hotter, bears are often drawn to pools. These party-crashing animals might have drawn inspiration from a particularly fun-loving bear who went viral in 2018 after nabbing a man’s margarita, chilling in his unheated Jacuzzi, and then passing out for a nap.