It’s not everyday that you see a black bear and a brown bear face off, but that exact thing happened recently at the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
Seeing the two bears in the same place isn’t common, but does occasionally happen in Alaska, and the U.S. Forest service was in the right place at the right time to catch it all on camera in this video. The footage was shared back at the end of July and showed a black bear cub that had found its way up a baron pine tree staring down a brown bear that revealed itself from the dense woods.
That poor little black bear cub is holding on for dear life at the top of the tree as the mother bear sits at the bottom of the trunk and looks up towards her offspring. Once the brown bear comes into the picture, the mother bear turns her attention to the potential danger and begins to walk right towards it.
I’ve never seen a hungry brown bear, but I would assume that this one in the clip was temporarily thinking about making a meal out of the black bear cub. The bear’s attitude quickly shifts when it sees that the cub’s mother is walking its way, and the fight is over before it even starts. Just by making her presence known, the mother black bear scares off the intrusive brown bear, who turns back the way it came from and exits the area.
The whole thing is a perfect representation of why you don’t get between a mother and her children.
The U.S. Forest Service posted the video of the encounter to their Facebook page, and provided this caption:
“Momma bear stare down! Anan is one of the only bear viewing sites in the world that has both brown & black bears. Which leads to encounters like this where a black bear made a brown bear exit the area to protect her cub hiding up a tree.
Such an ample food source keeps most interactions between the different species non-violent.”
Though it isn’t the knock-down, drag-out type fight that we are used to seeing with outdoors videos, it’s still a very cool insight into the life of a bear.
I’m sure the brown bear got excited for a moment about having some fresh baby bear for dinner, but decided that it would rather go find something else to eat in the forest rather than taking on the mother bear.
Bears are all about the easy meal, and fighting a mama for her cub is the opposite of easy.
Check it out:
