A video showing a group of bears blocking traffic has been wrongly tied to Yellowstone National Park. The clip, shared in July 2025 by social media user Scott Whitehead, claimed to show grizzly bears “leaving” the park. It quickly went viral across platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
Whitehead, who identifies as an “animal expert” in his social media descriptions, pushed the video on all of his accounts. It received millions of views on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. However, the video has been debunked. It was not taken in Yellowstone, nor in July 2025. The bears were actually inside a wildlife park.
Netizens react to viral video
The video gained a lot of attention from netizens on Instagram, one of the users wrote, “They know. They. ALWAYS. Know. Something about to happen.”
{{/usCountry}}The video gained a lot of attention from netizens on Instagram, one of the users wrote, “They know. They. ALWAYS. Know. Something about to happen.”
{{/usCountry}}A different user chimed, “Are humans so brain dead that maybe the Volcanos are about to erupt. Animal tend to sense things before humans.”
Another user wrote, “This happened 250,000 years ago the last time the Yellowstone Volcano exploded and killed everything within 1,000 square miles. It was written in the scrolls they found years later.”
A different user wrote, “This is a sign to know. Animal’s instinct is beyond human understanding!”
What's the truth behind viral video claiming bears flee Yellowstone?
However, Snopes examined whether the video came from Yellowstone National Park and if it was about bears migrating. The video was originally posted on January 16, 2025, by TikTok user @michelleijohn with the hashtags #bearcountry and #rapidcity.
The video is from Bear Country USA, a drive-through wildlife park in Rapid City, South Dakota, where bears roam in a fenced enclosure, according to a Snopes report.
The bears' behavior wasn't unusual. A similar scene was recorded in a 2017 YouTube video from the same park, showing multiple bears grouping together and walking across the road, briefly blocking traffic.