Farmers in Taiwan have a lot of wildlife to keep at bay—everything from deer to monkeys. But one Hualien farmer has filmed an animal that usually steers well clear of farms ravaging his crops.
On Monday, a mysterious black creature appeared in the middle of a Hualien County rice field, munching away on the still-growing rice plants. The field’s owner pulled out his phone and shot blurry footage of this unknown intruder.
Experts who’ve analyzed the clip believe it was a creature that, in the popular imagination at least, doesn’t usually go heavy on the carbs: a Formosan black bear. In the more than 60 years the farmers’ family has cultivated this plot of land, no one has ever seen a bear.
But the bear, if that’s what it is, didn’t leave behind any hair or tracks, meaning it’s still unclear what the creature really was. Wildlife authorities are now setting up an infrared camera nearby in the hopes of uncovering the rice thief’s identity.