Shocking trail cam clip shows the moment a bear and wolf BOTH attack a moose and her calf as they walk through Alaskan wilderness at night
Shocking trail cam clip shows the moment a bear and a wolf BOTH attack a moose and her calf as they walk through the Alaskan wilderness at night
- Intensive footage shows the two animals appearing to join forces to ambush their prey
- The perfectly placed cameras ‘give us a front row seat to Mother Nature’s drama’
Cameras equipped with censors captured the shocking moment when a bear and a wolf appear to team up to ambush a moose and her calf in the Alaskan wilderness.
According to the Department of Fish and Game, the incident occurred in the three-million-acre Glacier Bay National Park, close to the community of Gustavus in the southern part of the state, on the night of August 28.
The footage begins with the moose and her calf walking through the brush when a brown bear attacks from the left. The mother jumps back with a dropkick to fend off the bear from her offspring.
Just then, a wolf appears behind the bear and chases the now unguarded calf.
‘Experience the intense moment when prey and predators come face to face in this clip! “This camera was perfectly positioned along a popular wildlife travel route, giving us a front-row seat to Mother Nature’s drama,” Alaska officials wrote in a release. Facebook post.
“It’s this fantastic, phenomenal dynamic in wild Alaska that makes this place so special,” said conservationist Rick Steiner. Living Science when seeing the fragment.
The clip starts with the moose nursing her offspring
Eventually, a bear charged at the pair, prompting the mother to react and send the calf out of the picture
While the two were arguing, a wolf emerged from the darkness and chased the calf
One Facebook commenter wrote: ‘Dang. Bears and wolves working together??’
“It looks coordinated … but it’s impossible to know for sure,” the Alaska Department of Fish and Game responded.
Steiner told Live Science that “the bear was certainly aware of the wolf; the wolf was certainly aware of the bear.’
He added that it is likely that the wolf was “shadowing” the brown bear along with other wolves not seen in the video.
In the battle between the moose and the bear, Steiner said, “I’d put my money on the moose in that moose.” He added that after fighting off the bear, the moose would have gone after her calf, where she would again be the favorite.
“An adult moose is a formidable opponent at anything,” he said.
The wolf and the brown bear are natural enemies of the moose. The controlled animals are considered the main food source of wolves.
It is not clear what fate befell the two moose.
The cameras were set up as part of a study into the predatory behavior of wolves in the park.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves live in the state. Most live in packs of between 20 and 30 with a hierarchy.
Brown bears, on the other hand, are generally sole hunters, the main exception being when they hunt with the mother of their cubs. There are 30,000 bears in Alaska, about 98 percent of the U.S. national bear population.