"He's eating our car!" — Animal Expert looks out at driveway in Gatlinburg, Tennesse, finds bear destroying his Kia Telluride

A man in the Great Smoky Mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee had a grisly encounter with a black bear. In a video that was posted to wildlife enthusiast Jason Bittel's @BittelMeThis TikTok account, the creature was shown tearing into a White Kia Telluride as a group of people watched the vehicular destruction from inside a house.

"He's eating our car!" a child could be heard screaming off-camera. "He's breaking your car," another young person says as the bear continues to rip off a piece of window trim in an attempt to get inside of the vehicle. "Oh my God! Wait, watch out," a different individual says as window blinds briefly disrupt the view of the bear's work.

"He's ripping your car open!" another off-camera voice says as the animal separates what looks like window insulation from the SUV. A man can be heard saying that they should work on scaring the bear away from the front of the house.

Afterwards, the clip jump cuts to the bear making its way to the front passenger door of the vehicle. Next, Bittel appears on screen in a superimposed green-screen talking head monologue where he opines on the bear's activity. All the while the clip plays out as the forest-dwelling beast toils to enter the ride.

"I write about animals for a living and I'm embarrassed to admit I did not know American Black Bears could peel down your car window like it was a ripe banana. And when I say your car window I really mean my car window," he reveals.

At this point in the video, the bear has successfully broken the front passenger window of the Telluride. "Because this was my car last weekend in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Here are three things I wish I knew. First, even though I just wrote a book about animals for National Geographic and yes there's a literal bear on the cover," he says, showing off the cover of the book in question.

Bittel continued: "I will admit that I did not know black bears had the strength to simply pry open auto glass with more ease than you or I can open clamshell packaging," he tells his viewers. Bittle added that he was "mind blown" at how easily the bear was able to remove his car's weath-proofing.

While it's true that leaving grub in your car and campground is a bad idea as it can attract bears and other animals, Bittel explained that there wasn't any snacks or treat inside of his whip. He added that Gatlinburg, Tennessee has a large black bear population.

So large, in fact, that the town warns folks not to keep food inside of their cars and that its local bears have learned how to open car doors to get inside and help themselves to whatever's in there. Despite cleaning his car to ensure there wasn't any food in it, that didn't stop the bear.

Bittel said that the local bear population have adapted to learning that cars sometimes contain food. So even if they don't catch a scent of any meals, they'll apparently try to rip a ride open in the off chance there is something inside of it for them to eat.

"It will help itself to whatever it wants, whenever it wants," Bittel said, showing off footage of another car destroyed by a bear that managed to get inside. Following this, he mentions that in his book, a bear expert stated the best way to repel the animals is to use bear spray.

That's because the mace contains high amounts of capsaicin, which is especially potent for bears as they have a "superpowered" sense of smell, as Bittel relays. When they come into contact with bear spray, it enters their nose's mucus stream and then overloads their brains, forcing them into retreating.

Later on in his video, Bittel then showed footage of himself walking outside with a can of bear mace. He sprayed it in the direction of the bear, which stayed around for a bit as it licked its lips. Finally, the bear went off into the forest, but Bittel didn't leave the encounter unscathed.

He says that even though it wasn't a particularly windy day, the mace lingered, and some of it entered his own "throat and eyeballs." In his recording of the incident, Bittel can be seen walking into the house, blinking and patting his own chest after hitting the bear with some of the spray.

Bittel ended his video by stating even though using the bear spray was an unpleasant experience and it entered his throat and eyeballs, that neither he or the bear were seriously injured. "He'll think twice before breaking into another car," he says before his clip comes to a close.