A round of golf in Whistler, British Columbia, turned into something of a nature documentary this week. A black bear climbed halfway into a parked golf cart, pulled out a bag packed with ham, Swiss croissants, and toiletries, and dragged it into the woods, with the golfers’ wallets still inside.

The scene, caught on camera by golfer Philip Bitzaya, has since gone viral, with outlets including USA Today picking up the footage.

The bear sniffed around the cart before pulling out the bag with ham, croissants, wallets, and toiletries inside. What started as a harmless snack run quickly turned into a scramble to protect their valuables.

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“The bear smelled the ham and Swiss croissant and went into our golf cart. I thought it was funny until my wife said at the end that there were wallets in that bag,” Bitzaya said.

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And that’s exactly how it panned out. The bear took the entire bag that had wallets and disappeared into the woods nearby. Once there, it tore the bag apart and devoured everything edible inside. The golfers who tried to wave it off with their clubs could only stand at the edge, helpless. “Took our wallets into the woods. I wanted to wrestle him,” Bitzaya added, only half-joking about the encounter.

Staff tracked the bear into the woods and used bullhorns to drive it away. The wallets were recovered, though the croissant and the ham were long gone by then.

Wildlife safety groups note that roughly 50 resident black bears live in and around Whistler, with encounters most likely on golf courses, along trails, and near the ski slopes as bears emerge from hibernation each spring in search of food. Bears have an extraordinarily keen sense of smell and will investigate anything that carries an odor, whether it’s a sandwich or a bag of toiletries, which is why local guidance stresses storing food away from prying paws, since human food habituation is a leading reason bears are put down in British Columbia. A bear that keeps finding meals in golf carts can lose its natural wariness of people, turning a viral moment into a longer-term problem for both golfers and the bear.

In June 2024, a group of vacationing golfers at Fairmont Chateau Whistler Golf Club ran into a similar situation. The Weather Network shared a video of a black bear stealing golfers’ lunch bags outright. Funnily enough, he was named the lunch bandit.

“We call him the lunch bandit,” said the golfer who lost her lunch box. “He literally sat in the bush area there, and he went through the cookies, the banana, and the bag of chips, and he didn’t seem to want anything to do with us other than what was in the lunch bag.”

As with most Whistler encounters, the bear took the food and left everyone unharmed.

Bear crashes the Ladies Slovak Golf Open

Whistler is not the only course dealing with unexpected wildlife company this month. Just a few days ago, a bear forced officials to halt play entirely at the Ladies Slovak Open. The tournament, part of the LET Access series, was being held at the Gray Bear course at the Ski, Golf and Hotel Resort in Tále, Slovakia, with a 115-player field competing for a €50,000 purse.

Players were pulled off the fairways as a safety precaution while officials assessed the situation. The suspension happened during the second round, halting play at 10 a.m. local time before it resumed roughly an hour and 15 minutes later, once the wildlife response team confirmed it was safe to continue. Michaela Vavrova, a Slovak player competing on home soil, went on to lead the field heading into the final round.

Whistler’s croissant heist and Slovakia’s Gray Bear stoppage boil down to the same problem: golf courses sit right where food-scented human activity meets bear habitat, and that isn’t changing anytime soon. Expect more clubs to lock down food storage and tighten wildlife-response plans as these run-ins keep making headlines. For now, the bears are still ahead on this one.