"If he starts banging his head, we've got a problem." Watch rangers attempt to scare a bear away from a residential area using Black Sabbath classic Iron Man (it did not work)

Black Sabbath/Black Bear
(Image credit: Getty Images/Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/ Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Animals really seem to love heavy metal. Put aside the fact we've had a band fronted by a parrot - called Hatebeak, naturally - and a somewhat baffling trend of dogs growling over brutish death metal, we've also had headbanging horses and extreme metal loving orcas. Apparently we can now add black bears to the list. 

Rangers from Colorado Parks And Wildlife Northeast Region were called upon this week to move on a black bear that had set up camp in a residential area after getting into some trash and gorging itself on leftovers. 

Now, if you've seen The Revenant you'd probably think that the prospect of waking up with a bear in your back garden would be enough to get you running a hundred miles in the opposite direction. But the official Colorado Parks And Wildlife Twitter account was quick to point out it wasn't exactly as dramatic as it might seem. 


Though they were ultimately able to coax the bear out of the tree, they soon found it wasn't quite ready to leave the neighborhood, climbing into another tree. More... creative solutions were sought and ultimately the rangers teamed up with the Golden Police Department, taking control of a drone in the hopes it would make enough noise to scare the bear down the tree. It didn't. 

So again getting creative, they decided to use the drone blast Black Sabbath's Iron Man. Only, the bear didn't seem to mind at all and as the song played out someone can be heard remarking "if he starts banging his head, we've got a problem." 

Thankfully, they were eventually able to coax the bear out of the tree - after a few more hours of waiting - and the Colorado Parks And Wildlife shared a few takeaways from the encounter on Twitter. 

"Takeaway lessons: Keep your trash inside until the morning of trash day. This bear ate trash left out in the neighborhood the night before. Save a bear’s life by keeping it away from trash. Bears are cute but still very much wild animals. Black bears don’t mind Black Sabbath."

Perhaps they should have tried AC/DC instead...

Watch a clip of the bear nonchalantly listening to Black Sabbath below.  

Rich Hobson

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn't fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token.