It’s officially grizzly season in Yellowstone.
The national park announced this past Wednesday that they’ve had their first confirmed sightings of a grizzly bears coming out of hibernation. And those sleeping giants didn’t waste anytime resuming their normal bear activities.
A bison carcass in the Hayden Valley area of the park quickly became a post-hibernation meal for one of the grizzly bears that got back out into the snow-covered landscape of Yellowstone. The deceased bison had laid in the snow for quite some time, and it’s tough hide was a tall task for coyotes that were attempting to tear into it.
But once the grizzlies were up and at ’em, the bison’s skin was no match for the sharp teeth and power of a grizzly bear. Kyle Vetter, a photographer who works within Yellowstone, captured this image of the national park’s first bear sighting of the season, showing the bear fighting with ravens over the carcass:
The Yellowstone photographer stuck around for a while watching the grizzly pick at the bones of the bison, and even got a couple of videos as the daylight ran out. The first clip showed the grizzly digging in and bear-handling (instead of man-handling) the bones of the bison, and was described by the photographer as:
“We were losing light very quickly but we watched 781 eat his dinner at around 7 P.M. today. This was taken on a spotting scope phone adapter from over 100 yards away.”
And the second one was taken a little bit later as the sun continued to set, showing the grizzly tear frozen chunks away from the carcass. Nothing goes to waste in the animal kingdom, especially if a hungry, post-hibernation bruin has something to say about it:
Check out some of Kyle’s other incredible photos:
