Meanwhile in Canada: Music Teacher Plays Trombone to Frighten Bear Away (Nothing Scarier Than School Band Practice)

Photo:  Murguia©photography (Getty Images)

Since, from the moment you step outside, you’re surrounded by unbridled nature, everyone has had a run-in with a critter from time to time. Usually, it’s simply an unruly woodchuck, squirrel, or skunk. But sometimes it’s a bigger nuisance like a raccoon or even a bear. How do we deal with it? Go inside and hope it goes away, shoo it with a broom (not a great idea when dealing with a bear), or play the trombone in an effort to frighten it away?

One music teacher in Canada chose the latter and we’re all pretty happy he did. Going out and confronting a beer is rarely a good idea. But using the same technique they use to annoy prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? Now that’s just genius.

It all started when students told Tristan Clausen, a music teacher at St. John’s Academy in Shawnigan Lake in British Columbia, about a bear loitering around the wood building where the garbage cans are kept outside of the school. First, another teacher tried to bang loudly on a door, but the bear didn’t leave.

That’s when Clausen decided to try a reverse Pied Piper-type situation. Instead of attempting to draw the bear to him, he began to play the trombone to bother the pilfering bear enough that it would turn around and get out of there as soon as possible.

While this would be a great story on its own, we’re all glad to learn that a student was smart enough to whip out her smartphone and record the whole, silly ordeal. The trombone managed to annoy the bear just as much as it annoys us when we hear it and the bear quickly ran off, likely to come back and pillage the garbage during after-school hours instead. Delicious food and no horrible music? Makes sense to us.