Asheville DJ Doesn't Miss A Beat In Encounter With Black Bear

ASHEVILLE, NC — In a former work life, Jody Flemming came into regular contact with black bears as part of his duties as a park ranger in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

So when a 150-pound black bear made its way to the door of Flemming’s Asheville home in October, the 50-year-old real estate agent — who also moonlights as a part-time DJ — took it all in stride. The encounter was captured on video while Flemming was livestreaming a dance party at his home, and the video has now been viewed more than 57,000 times on YouTube.

In the video, Flemming is minding his own beat-dropping business when the bear makes his way to the door and eventually stands on his hind legs and peers through the door. Unaware of the visitor, Flemming continues to do his thing before eventually turning around and getting his first glimpse of the bear.

Flemming told the Asheville Citizen-Times that he kept hearing a noise as the music played but didn’t know what it was until he caught his first glimpse of the bear through his door. The noise — it turns out — was Flemming’s neighbor’s car horn, which caught the bear’s attention and drew it away from Flemming’s house.

“I just saw this figure,” Flemming told the Citizen-Times this week of getting his first up-close look at the curious black bear. “I thought it was maybe my neighbor coming to tell me the music was too loud. I got kind of halfway over (to the door) and said, ‘Oh, there’s a bear there.’”

Rather than attempting to get the bear to move on, Flemming is seen in the video grabbing his phone to capture either a video or a quick picture. But by the time he gets outside, the bear has already left the scene, leaving Flemming to return to his music.

Flemming told the newspaper that in addition to his experience dealing with bears as a park ranger, bears are quite common near his home in East Asheville. And apparently, this particular bear has visited Flemming’s house before — just not as close as it did in October in the viral video that has been viewed around the world.

“We kind of just keep our distance and say, ‘Hi,’” Flemming told the newspaper. “Whenever I saw him, I'd go out on the porch and watch him do his thing.”

The video has been picked up by news outlets across the globe, including the United Kingdom, China and Finland. He told the Citizen-Times he has signed with a licensing agency and that if he makes money off the video, he plans to donate 20 percent of the proceeds to an Asheville zoo to help with efforts to provide natural habitats to animals.