A video of a "hungry" bear helping itself to a garbage bin in California has gone viral on TikTok.

The bear encounter was captured in a video posted by @tayloroliphant_ and has amassed over 480,000 views since it was first posted on June 29. The footage was shot outside a building in a forested area in South Lake Tahoe, a city in El Dorado County in the Sierra Nevada mountains, according to a location shared with the post.

A note overlaid on the video simply reads: "Mama bear & cub in Lake Tahoe."

Black bears in Lake Tahoe typically emerge from hibernation in the spring, with the males and 2-year-old cubs coming out of their dens first, while "moms with yearling cubs and new babies will emerge a bit later as the weather warms," notes Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC), a nonprofit.

"After losing a third of their body weight, they are hungry and will immediately start looking for food, anywhere they can find it. Their natural first foods are grasses, roots and shoots. But, sadly, bears living in the Tahoe basin have become accustomed to human food trash," LTWC says.

One of the most important things you can do to keep bears safe is to keep food and trash stored properly. Once a bear has already obtained food, such as trash, it will not leave until it has finished eating, "so it is important to make sure they cannot get into any trash or other food in the first place," the nonprofit adds.

"Bears with access to human food quickly become habituated to it, preferring to visit populated areas for food scraps rather than eat a natural diet. Habituated bears may be euthanized if they are considered a threat to humans," according to LTWC.

'She's Hungry'

The aforementioned viral TikTok video shows a bear approach a trash bin, with bystanders in the background. The animal stands up and knocks the garbage bin onto the ground, which flips the lid open.

The bear pulls the trash bag out of the bin, grabbing it with its mouth, while standing up and walking backward. A voice off-camera is heard making noise presumably to scare the bear away.

After dropping the bag briefly, the bear is later shown grabbing the item again with its mouth and running away from the area, leaving a trail of garbage behind as it falls from the bag. The bear is then seen with a cub, and the pair are shown tucking into the contents of the bag before the clip ends.

A caption shared with the post simply reads: "Little lady just wanted some burgers."

TikTok users were amused by the bear's antics in the viral clip and sympathetic toward its need for food.

"BEARS ARE SO SMART," noted rosegallegos335 and Colleen Carson simply posted: "that was funny."

M noted, "She's hungry," and inkedchele agreed, saying: " Awe she's hungry :( we had one get us this morning in Camino."

"He's like leave me alone, I need to eat too!!!," wrote sherrynsua.

Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via TikTok. This video has not been independently verified.

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