Guided backpacking, hiking, camping and photography trips in Alaska, including Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Photo Tours include polar bear tours, grizzly and brown bears, northern lights photo tours (aurora borealis) and Alaska landscapes.
The males "strutting and posturing and peeing and rubbing, jaw clacking, and carrying on, generally chest-pounding" while the female and baby go about eating peacefully and minding their own business (from a giant carcass with plenty for everyone, btw) seems all too familiar.
Anthropomorphizing bears causes problems for people to learn from what they witness. Yes, the latecoming male targetted the cub likely to kill it. The mother protected her cub as Nature intended. One of the unique features of Katmai is brown bears uphold a common law of tolerance for each other despite their instincts: get along to go along. Tolerate each other so all could share in the bounties of the natural ecosystem. The second male interceded to assault the aggressing male because he had broken the common law. Such violence upset the balance they all maintained together. We could all learn from this. Upsetting the law of tolerance, mutual benefit, peaceful coexistence for personal motives( be they malevolent and unjustifiable)has dire consequences from unforeseen origins
I guess there was no real intension to defend the female, but to get rid of the male that was disputing the carcase. Female and cub were not threat to it, but the arriving new male was and as soon as the new one showed its teeth violence showed, the big one felt the catcase needed to be defended.
I wear shell clothing, i.e. water resistant, and leather gloves. They can't sting through that. Gets a bit hot but that's worth the price. The shell jacket has a large hood that i pull over, they seem to not be able to find their way below it. But using an insect net in front of it would surely work.
“Meanwhile back in the jungle” lol. The guy off to the side is like: “I ain’t see nothing. It ain’t my business. I was facing away from the interaction eating, officer. I am also deaf and blind and cannot smell. I ain’t about to be shanked.”
it is common knowledge that male bears will kill cubs, this guy stepped in and stopped the attack. It might be his cub, and he know it. For sure bears recognize each other. Make no sense that a male bear kills his own offspring he fought so hard for. So, there might be a whole lot we don't know about bear-to-bear relations.
Replying to several posts below on camera operator judgment with examples of perspective distortion: @0:13 closer-than-actual background (cliffs) to subject (bear) due to combo of long lens and long distance from camera to subject; also compare heights of cliffs to bear, close tidal flats @0:37 larger-than-actual close subject (human) to background (bear) due to extremely short distance from camera to subject and closer-than-actual background (bear) to subject (human) due to combo of long lens and long distance from camera to subject
