Claim:
A black bear broke into a Bass Pro Shops store and raided a live fish tank.
Rating:
A rumor that has circulated online since late October 2025 claims that a black bear broke into a Bass Pro Shops store and ate its fill from the live fish tank, then fell asleep until the next morning, when employees found it snoring. Snopes readers emailed us to inquire whether the rumor was true.
Posts sharing the story an alleged collage of images of the bear appeared on social media platforms such as Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived). One Facebook post (archived), which was the earliest instance of the rumor we could find, read:
Black Bear Breaks Into Bass Pro Shop, Has All You Can Eat Buffet. Overnight security footage shows a black bear breaking into a Bass Pro Shop and raiding the live fish tanks eating nearly every fish in sight. After his feast, the bear wandered into the hunting section and passed out on a pile of duck decoys. By morning, employees found him snoring like he owned the place. Online, he’s already being called “Bass Pro’s new mascot.”
There was no evidence confirming the rumor itself, and the images were likely fake — more on this below. As such, we have rated the claim as false.
We reached out to Bass Pro Shops to ask whether a bear had broken into any of their stores and will update the story if we receive a response.
Behind the rumor
Searching Google for “bear bass pro shop” found no news outlets reporting on the bear’s break-in. The story would have been widely reported if true.
The image collage circulating alongside the rumor was suspect for several reasons. The fish tanks featured in the image did not line up with any Bass Pro Shops fish tanks that we could find. Such tanks are typically built into a wall and “decorated to match the local environment,” and they generally have taller sides.
The images in the collage were grainy, so it was difficult to attribute visual inconsistencies to artificial intelligence. However, there were some hints that suggested AI generation or digital image manipulation. For example, the image’s smaller background elements seemed to get fuzzy and fade together, which is common in AI-generated images. The way the bear appeared to affect the water was unrealistic — the water showed no splashing or movement.
The bear also appeared to be balancing entirely on the edge of the fish tank in the lower image. Even if the tank’s glass were strong enough to sustain the bear’s weight, it is unlikely that the bear would be able to hold its body in that position. AI image generators tend to have trouble creating images that accurately obey physics.
Sightengine, a website for detecting the use of artificial intelligence in images, gave a 42% probability that the image was AI-generated. It’s worth noting that AI image detectors are not always accurate.
The rumor seemed to originate from the Facebook page StoryTime — a TinEye search of the alleged image of the bear did not yield any alternative sources. StoryTime posts dozens of shocking, seemingly impossible stories every day, usually related to animals. Snopes has investigated several rumors and accompanying images from the StoryTime page, often finding them to be fabricated. This case was no different.
For further reading, Snopes investigated a similar StoryTime post about a mountain lion breaking into a Colorado pet store.
