My theory is that bears are just clumsy. They're smart enough to imagine what they'd like to do, but not adept enough to execute. And then they're angry.

For example, I imagine one of the bears had some artistic vision here for an awesome jack-o-lantern. The internal dialogue probs went something like this:

"I want to make BIG eyes, and a triangle nose...Oh, rats, I messed up. That's totally not what I was after. Who cares? I hate pumpkins anyway..."

But I have some buddies over at the Zoo. I think I'll shoot them an E-mail and see if I can't get someone to tell us what's really going on here.

What part of the pumpkin do most people eat?

The seeds.

I think if you watch closely the bears are doing the same thing. Or at least they want to, but I think frustration leads to just taking it out on the pumpkin. Sort of like having to deal with a "child-proof" cap on a medicine bottle.

Bears are great omnivores and eat an amazing variety of foods including many super foods like nuts and berries. I have seen them enjoy watermelons, so maybe the pumkin is new. The all definately licked it and 2 of them bit into it to try the "new" food. I wonder if they ate it later? I personally feel the only animal capable of hate except -maybe other primates-are humans.