Finders keepers, losers (this brown bear) weepers.
Out in the wild, you never know what two animals will face off. The food chain can shift gears in an instant, and even after a predator takes down prey, the fight isn’t over. Sometimes it’s actually just the beginning, and that was on full display with this bald eagle and brown bear in Katmai, Alaska.
Katmai National Park is home to an estimated 2,200 bears. The sprawling area in Alaska is also home to the famous “Fat Bear Week,” which runs each year from late September to early October. I know Christmas and March Madness are often considered the “most wonderful time of the year,” but “Fat Bear Week” – which is put on by Preserve Explore.org and the Katmai Conservancy – has to be up there.
And thanks to Explore.org, there are wildlife cameras set up all over Katmai that often times capture incredible footage.
In this latest example, a bald eagle was perched on a rock within the flowing river chowing down on a freshly caught fish. Baldies are some of the best anglers on the planet, and pair their sharp talons (sharpest of all predatory birds) with their exceptional eyesight to regularly catch fish trying to live their lives just below the water’s surface.
Evidently, a fish swimming its way near Brooks Falls wasn’t aware of the danger lurking above, and paid the price.
The bald eagle set up shop right in the middle of the water for its meal, and I’d say that was pretty smart thinking. Taking the fish to the shore would have really made it an easy target for other predators in the area interested in stealing away the fresh seafood. The only better spot would have been high up in the trees, where only other birds could have bothered it.
However, it thought the mid-water rock was perfect… and a hungry brown bear thought the same. Right as the baldie started to dig in, the brown bear named “Walker” started sneaking up. The bird quickly became aware of the potential fish-swiper and was understandably on high alert.
Hilariously, the big ol’ brown bear nonchalantly walked up, as if it was trying to trick the bald eagle into thinking it was just out for a stroll that just so happened to pass by the rock it was perched on. The eagle wasn’t buying it for a bit, and when the sizable creature got too close, the bald eagle tightly grasped the fish and flew off.
It looks like there were a small amount of scraps that “Walker” ended up snacking on, but if the bear was trying to make it out of there with the entire fish… it was out of luck.
Sharing is not caring in the Animal Kingdom, and this bald eagle made it very clear that there’d be no free fish handouts in Katmai, Alaska. It was all captured by the Brooks Falls camera within Katmai National Park, and it’s the type of outdoors video that you could watch again and again and again and not get tired of:
