Cocaine bear, meet cannabis raccoon and McFlurry skunk

By Emily Anthes

In September 1985, the authorities discovered the body of Andrew Thornton, a drug smuggler, in a Tennessee backyard. He had a bag full of cocaine, a failed parachute and the key to a small airplane, which turned up at a crash site about 60 miles away. Investigators spent months searching for the rest of Thornton’s stash, which they suspected he had dropped along his airborne route. But in the mountains of northern Georgia, a black bear found it first. “The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine and OD’d,” an official told AP in December of 1985.

But experts have seen wild animals consume just about everything else: swiping high-end chocolate cakes out of homes, sucking syrup from hummingbird feeders and even making off with other intoxicants, including marijuana and beer. Some of their stories are amusing, even relatable. “I received a call of a skunk out behind a hotel, running around in the parking lot with a McFlurry cup on its head,” said Jeff Hull, an environmental conservation officer for New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. But animals’ taste for human goods — licit and illicit — can also bring trouble for them and for us.

Bears are notorious for getting into human provisions, especially as winter approaches and they need to pack on the pounds. “Essentially, they’re an eating machine,” said Dave Wattles, a black-bear and fur-bearer biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “They’re constantly searching out easy, calorie-rich foods.”

Bears, which have a keen sense of smell, have learned that humans are a reliable source of such foods. And so they turn over trash cans and dive into dumpsters. They raid bird feeders and beehives, steal livestock feed and pet food and ransack backyard chicken coops and the grease traps on outdoor grills. Sometimes, they even break into homes. In the Berkshire Mountains, one bear burglar routinely sought out frozen treats.

“That bear entered several dwellings and passed by available food, going directly to the freezer and eating ice cream,” said Andrew Madden, the western district supervisor at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “It always seemed to be vanilla, but that may be a result of availability.” In the quest for high-calorie food, bears sometimes stumble upon other substances. In October 2020, a man in Cotopaxi, Colo., reported that a bear had raided an outdoor freezer, making off with marijuana edibles, said Joseph Livingston, a public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. (Planning ahead, perhaps, the animal also took French fries.)

Whatever else the effect, recreational drugs can make wild animals sick. In January 2018, Gibsons Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, in Gibsons, British Columbia, took in a dazed raccoon that had been discovered in a local yard. Laboratory testing suggested that the animal had recently ingested marijuana and benzodiazepines, depressants often prescribed for anxiety.

With wildlife biology unlikely to change, the onus is on humans to reduce the risks, and experts recommended that people dispose of trash properly and store birdseed, pet food, garbage and other animal attractants in secure, indoor spaces. People should also refrain from feeding wildlife deliberately, they said — and, presumably, from dropping cocaine out of planes.

Anthes is a journalist with NYT©2023

The New York Times