There are plenty of question marks around this story involving a brown bear and a bear carcass.
The state of Alaska is one of the more popular tourist destinations for bear viewing. When an outdoorsman witnessed some interesting bear activity in the region, they decided to set up some trail cameras around the wooded area in Southeast Alaska.
Bears are considered to be apex predators, so one of the more intriguing aspects of the footage is what could have killed the bear that lays decomposing right in front of the camera.
According to Outdoor Life, one of the cameras was pointed right at the remains of the bear that had been taken down by something, or someone. It wasn’t clear how the bear met its demise, though there were some clues pointing towards a bear versus bear showdown.
Could it have been another bear showing the other who laid claim to the area? Or could it have been a hunter that shot the bear and then left it be taken over by nature?
We may never know what exactly went down that led the bear to its final resting place, but trail camera footage that was captured may help to put some of the puzzle pieces together. Video showed a lot of bears visiting the area, but only one of them interacted in a way that made it seem as though it was familiar with that particular spot.
In the footage below, a rather large brown bear can be seen waltzing around the carcass, and eventually turning all of its attention to it. The bruin first starts to sniff and drool over it, and then seemingly out of nowhere, it starts to roll around all over the carcass.
Now why would a big bear come back to a carcass and start rolling around on it? Well, there’s a good chance that it did so in order to both mark its territory and celebrate one of its biggest winning fights.
Rolling around and leaving its scent on the carcass sends a message to every other animal in the area, saying:
“Yeah, I did this, and I’d suggest you don’t mess with me unless you want to become a carpet like this big bear did.”
The bruin looked like it was having the time of its life as it wiggled and rolled all over the dead bear, which had to have smelled absolutely disgusting.
However, it didn’t look like the bear was too worried about it, and was arguably even embracing it, which supports the idea that this bear was the one responsible for taking the now deceased bear down.
Take a look at the interesting (and maybe even slightly disturbing) video below:
