A few days ago, during a morning drive in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the United States, nature photographer and documentary filmmaker Gil Arbel, 55, encountered an exceptional scene while traveling with his partner, Alice Mandel, for a National Geographic nature shoot. Driving slowly through the forest, the pair spotted a large black bear lying on the ground and stopped immediately.
Arbel said that at first they assumed it was an adult male resting between the trees. He began filming, but then the bear lifted its head and looked up. Seconds later, one cub climbed down from a tree, then another, and a third followed. Only then did the two realize they were watching a mother black bear and her three American black bear cubs, Ursus americanus.
The encounter took place in a park that gets its name from the morning mist that covers it, and Arbel noted that about 2,000 black bears live there across roughly 2,000 square kilometers, making it the largest black bear population in the United States. He said the cubs quickly came down, nursed near them as if the humans were invisible, and then began playing, climbing on one another, rolling on the ground, and wrestling freely. Arbel said seeing bear cubs at close range showed him why bears are considered among the world’s cutest animals, combining wildness and innocence, power and softness.
Arbel, who has spent more than two decades filming wildlife around the world, said he has documented animals in Africa, South America, Tonga, and many other wild places. He has made award-winning nature films and created the Israeli nature film "Eretz Pere". He studied photography at Camera Obscura and took part in nature film productions in Israel and abroad, including a whale film that won the Italian Oscar for underwater cinematography and screened at a nature film festival in England. Reflecting on the bear encounter, he said Mandel’s support helped make it possible, and that the moment felt like a gift from nature and a reminder of how much the wild can still move people. He added that the bears did not seem afraid of humans because they know people will not harm them, describing a harmony based on mutual respect.
