A video from a rural Alaskan neighborhood captures a grizzly bear hunting a moose.
The scene from the YouTube video looks like a standard backyard. The only difference is that some of the largest animals in North America are just steps away from their back door.
Take a look at the clip:
The video, posted by the channel My Life In Remote Alaska, starts with an explainer to say the video is from their neighbors. It then shows a grizzly bear hunting a moose and its calf as it hides among the trees. The pair of moose make a run for it, but the grizzly bear is able to catch and pin the moose calf.
“There’s going to be a really angry mother moose terrorizing the neighborhood for the next seven days,” the post says.
To add to the chaos, a horse appears at the very end of the video, but quickly makes a turn to run from the scene.
Grizzlies Prepare for Hibernation
A grizzly, or brown bear, going for a moose calf is typical. The smaller animal can put up less of a fight. It’s also the end of summer, and in places like Alaska, grizzlies start to prepare for their winter hibernation.
From September to November, bears in Alaska will eat just about anything they can find. It’s part of an intense feeding period known as hyperphagia, which helps them build up fat in order to hibernate.
This wild scene was captured near Healy, Alaska, which is in the interior of the state and north of Denali National Park. That means winter comes fast and soon.
Hundreds of bears roam in the Denali area and most of them begin to hibernate as early as October. The bears continue that period until mid-April to May. While proper safety steps are a requirement to live in any area with brown bears, during hyperhagia, wildlife officials usually see a spike in human and bear conflicts.